New Delhi: The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) on Tuesday said that it has asked all the States and UTs not to hide data on Covid19 active cases and deaths in their respective states. "The health ministry has reiterated to all States and UTs not to hide the actual data as it may hamper in Covid management," said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary in the health ministry while addressing a press conference in New Delhi on Covid management.
Agarwal was responding to a query over reports that many states are underreporting the number of active cases and deaths. "However, we are getting regular reports from the States and UTs," he added.
Giving an update on the latest scenario of the Covid19 pandemic, the health ministry official said that the cases in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh have come down. "Now, these three states have been reporting less than 1 lakh active cases. The number of states having cases between 50,000 to 1 lakh has also decreased from 12 to 8," said Agarwal.
He said that States and UTs need to keep up the momentum. "A majority portion of our people (98 per cent) are still vulnerable to the infection. We need to implement the containment measures and sustain the low infection rate," said Agarwal.
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He said that with a -3.16 per cent decline in new daily cases, India as on Tuesday has 2,63,553 daily cases from 4,14,188 as reported on May 10. However, the daily new deaths have witnessed an increase of 1.6 per cent on a 7-days moving average. From 4205 on May 12, the cases went up to 4329 as of Tuesday.
Agarwal said that though the testing is increasing the positivity is also decreasing. "As many as 199 districts have been witnessing an increasing trend of cases and positivity in the last three weeks," said the official.
"India has witnessed a consistent upward trend in weekly tests since mid-February with average daily tests more than 2.5 times in the last 14 weeks. After a consistent increase in case positivity for 13 weeks, a decline in case positivity since the last week reported," he said.
Agarwal said that 1.8 per cent of India’s total population have been affected by the pandemic which is much lesser in comparison to many other countries. Health ministry statistics said that 10.1 per cent of the total population of the USA, 7.3 per cent of Brazil, 9.0 per cent of France and 7.4 per cent of the total population of Italy have been affected by the pandemic.
"Despite the high number of cases reported so far, we have been able to contain the spread to under 2 per cent of the population. This should also make us wary of protecting the still vulnerable and susceptible 98 per cent population. We can’t let our guards down, hence continued focus on containment is critical," added Agarwal.
More than 22 States and UTs in India have been reporting more than 22 per cent positivity whereas 13 States are reporting 5 to 15 per cent positivity.
Significantly, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi are some of the States and UTs which have witnessed a decline in cases and positivity.
Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Mizoram are some of the states in the Northeast which have been witnessing a rise in cases and positivity. On the other hand, Assam, Nagaland, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal among others are some of the states which have been witnessing a rise in cases and decline in positivity.
Referring to the vaccination drive, Agarwal said that 18.44 crore doses have been provided to date with 14.24 crore people getting the first dose and 4.20 crore getting the second dose.
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Meanwhile, talking on the reports that children are likely to be more affected in the possible third wave of the pandemic and a new variant, Dr VK Paul, member Niti Aayog said that since the initial days of the pandemic, the central government has said that a similar number of adults and children will be affected "although the children and young people will be asymptomatic."
"In an ICMR conducted serosurvey, we have found that almost a similar number of adults and young were seropositive (20-25 per cent)," he said. Dr Paul informed that Covaxin maker Bharat Biotech will also start its vaccine trial on children and young people in 10-12 days.
He reiterated that after taking the Covid19 vaccine if someone gets infected "there will be no severity."
"However, it’s a dynamic situation and we need to be careful," added Dr Paul.
Referring to the issue of black fungus (Mucormycosis), Dr Paul said that people with diabetes need to be extra careful. "This (black fungus) is also an emerging threat. We should be careful to deal with the issue," he said.
On the issue of DRDO’s new 2-DG drug, Dr Paul said that the drug has got approval from the DCGI. "Now, our national task force on Covid19 will examine the incorporation of the drug into the clinical management protocol," informed Dr Paul.
