The Centre deploys multi-disciplinary teams, central nodal officers for 10 states

The Disaster Management Cell of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has constituted 10 teams of multi-disciplinary experts to send to 10 states to take stock of the Covid-19 situation.

The Centre has decided to send these teams to those states where either the Omicron cases are rising or the vaccination coverage is below the national average.

An office memorandum, issued by the Ministry, said, “ In view of the rapid surge in cases and deaths because of Covid-19, as reported by the various new channels, state governments and noted in internal reviews, it has been seen that the number of Omicron cases have emerged in some states. It has also been observed that the pace of Covid-19 vaccination in these states is less than the national average.”

It added, ”In the wake of this situation, a decision has been taken to deploy a multi-disciplinary central team to 10 identified states some of which are either reporting an increasing number of Omicron and Covid-19 cases or slow vaccination pace, to aid the efforts of the state and district administration for management of Covid-19.”

It further informed that these teams shall be stationed in states allotted for 3 to 5 days and will work along with state health authorities and these teams will specifically look at areas of contract tracing including containment, surveillance measures; Covid-19 testing including sending of adequate samples from clusters to INSACOG for genome sequencing; Covid appropriate behaviours and its enforcement; availability of hospital beds, sufficient logistics including ambulances, ventilators, medical oxygen etc and Covid19 vaccination progress.