New Delhi: Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan expressed his grave concern over the trajectory of COVID-19 in six districts of Karnataka and stressed on concerted efforts to check its growth.

The Union Minister held a meeting through video-conferencing to review COVID-19 preparedness and measures for ensuring ‘COVID-Appropriate Behaviour’ with Karnataka Health and Medical Education Minister Dr. K. Sudhakar, and other senior officials of the State Government, here yesterday.

He noted that Urban Bengaluru, Mysuru, Ballari, Dakshina Kannada, Hassan and Belagavi were reporting more number of cases when compared to other districts and spoke to officials of the districts concerned.  “Fatality rate is showing a rising trend. Karnataka has the second highest cumulative cases after Maharashtra. Karnataka has a recovery rate of 93 percent which is more than the national recovery rate. The case of fatality rate (1.35 percent) is also lower than the national average,” he said.

The Union Health Minister interacted with the Deputy Commissioners of the six districts reporting high cases and higher mortality. The health authorities of the State apprised the Union Minister on the steps taken to contain COVID. The State is following 4 Ts of Tracing, Testing, Treatment and Technology to tackle COVID-19. Testing has been increased from 10,000 tests per day in June to over 80,000 per day as of now. Testing facilities have been made available in all the Medical Colleges of the State. This has increased testing capacities manifold. More than 8 million tests have been done in the State, so far. The State authorities said that 80 per cent of the tests done are by RT-PCR. 

The State has also reduced the active cases by 37 per cent between Oct. 25 and Nov. 1. Random pool testing and targeted testing has been done to ensure early containment and appropriate treatment. Containment strategies were adopted in the urban areas, they said. 

Expressing satisfaction over India’s progress in combating Corona, Dr. Harsh Vardhan said “We will soon be completing a journey of 10 months in fighting Corona. The country is now witnessing substantial improvements in COVID parameters. The number of cases and deaths are in a declining phase. The active cases have been substantially reduced. The recovery rate of India has surpassed 92 per cent today. The case fatality rate is also declining and stands at 1.49 per cent.”

“With over 2,000 labs, the testing capacity has also increased. In the coming festival and winter season, the virus poses potential threats. It becomes very important to follow ‘COVID- Appropriate Behaviour’ to cut the transmission of virus. Whenever there is a laxity in following basic precautionary measures, the country has suffered,” he noted.

Rajesh Bhushan, Union Health Secretary, underscored that the new cases and deaths in Karnataka have declined significantly but still a lot needs to be done to bring the parameters to pre-July levels.  The State should aim at bringing the positivity level to less than 5 per cent. The State needs to engage aggressively with all the stakeholders in those districts which have fatality rate higher than the national average.

 Dr. S.K. Singh, Director, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), made a brief presentation on the current status of COVID-19 in Karnataka. Arti Ahuja, Additional Secretary, (Health), Dr. Sunil Kumar, Head, Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary and other senior officials were also present in the meeting.