New Delhi: A two-member central team touring Kashmir has suggested a slew of measures in the Valley in view of the impending winter and a spike in cases. These include setting up 24×7 Covid counselling call centres at divisional levels and strengthening the contact-tracing mechanism by home quarantining all contacts until they test negative.
The team — composed of Niti Aayog Member (Health) Dr V.K. Paul and National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) chief Dr S.K. Singh — is visiting Kashmir to take stock of the overall Covid situation in the Valley. On Friday, they called on the Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha at the Raj Bhavan.
“In view of the impending winter season and sudden spike of positive cases in some districts of J&K, the team suggested a host of immediate measures including establishing Micro containment plan in cities with 100% testing of all inhabitants with strict perimeter control; to strengthen the Referral system from peripheral hospitals to Tertiary care hospitals; involvement of PRI (Panchayat Raj Institutions) in rural areas for COVID control efforts; continuing the high testing trend and build on same and increasing High flow nasal cannula (HFNC) inventory and keeping sufficient stock in stores,” read a statement issued by the Raj Bhawan.
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Three districts show spike
Jammu and Kashmir is among the territories in the country that are doing better in terms of Covid cases. As of Friday morning, the Union Territory reported a total of 35,135 cases and 671 deaths. However, the team was sent to the Valley after red flags were raised about a spike in both cases and deaths in three districts — Srinagar, Baramulla and Pulwama.
The two experts met officials from all districts and tertiary care hospitals for a detailed review.
“They appreciated the J&K Government’s testing strategy, mandatory traveller screening and home care model for positive asymptomatic patients. Testing strategy across the J&K is aggressive and robust and it has helped in containing the spread of the disease in the UT,” said the Raj Bhawan statement.
The Lt Governor called for heightened awareness to keep the infections low and an immediate capacity augmentation, besides utilising every available resource to arrest the mortality rate, which is currently at 1.91 per cent.
Sinha also asked the health functionaries to formulate a comprehensive future management and containment strategy of Covid-19 in J&K. He stressed on carrying out intensive surveillance and testing, particularly in red zones, and inviting renewed participation of PRIs, religious leaders and other distinguished personalities to spread awareness.
Sinha laid special emphasis on ensuring 100 per cent coverage of Aarogya Setu app and asked for its integration with ITIHAS system, an IT-driven contact-tracing tool used extensively in Delhi, to improve contact-tracing and surveillance of positive cases. He also said geo-mapping must be done to predict hotspots.
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