Misbah Ali

In the backdrop of rising cases in Kerala, the central government has rushed a high-level team of experts to support the state's effective public health interventions for COVID-19 management, the Indian Health Ministry said on July 29, 2021.

“Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has decided to depute a high-level multi-disciplinary team to Kerala to collaborate with the State Health Authorities in instituting effective public health measures for COVID-19 management in view of the significantly enhanced number of daily COVID cases being reported by Kerala,” the ministry said in the press release.

The Director of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. SK Singh will be heading the six-member central team and will work closely with the State Health Departments.

“The team shall reach Kerala on July 30, 2021 and visit a few districts,” the ministry added.

Further, it said that the team shall take stock of the on-ground situation and recommend necessary public health interventions to contain the large number of cases being reported by the State.

The country is witnessing the surge mainly because of a big rise in Kerala which witnessed 22,056 new cases today followed by 6,857 new cases of infections reported in Maharashtra.

“Kerala with an active caseload of 1.54 lakh is contributing 37.1% of the total active cases in the country, with a growth rate of 1.41 in the last seven days. The average daily cases being reported in the state are above 17,443. The state has also reported a high case positivity of 12.93% cumulatively and 11.97% weekly. Six districts are reporting more than 10% weekly positivity,” the  further added.

Keeping this rise in view, the Kerala government on July 29, 2021 announced that complete lockdown will be imposed across the state on July 31 and August 1.