As the country inches closer towards relaxation of the nationwide lockdown, enforced to contain the spread of coronavirus, the Union Health Ministry on Friday said the biggest challenge is that of properly delineating containment zones in the areas from where cases are reported.
Responding to a query connected with the categorising of districts into various zones, Joint Secretary, Health, Lav Agarwal said: "The biggest challenge is not whether any district has been classified as red or orange zone, the challenge is that the area where cases have come are properly delineating containment zones."
The Health Ministry emphasised that containment zones should be delineated duly taking into account mapping of cases & contacts, geographical dispersion of cases & contacts, areas with a well-demarcated perimeter, and enforceability.
Agarwal also detailed various measures to be undertaken in the containment zone.
"Depending on the area of the containment, how many surveillance teams have been made (to address the spread of virus)? Are these surveillance teams on a day-to-day basis visiting households in the area? Are they not leaving any case in the area?" he said, adding if this is not taken care of, "whatever efforts we had made, would eventually fail".
He emphasised that wherever cases have been reported, the containment efforts should be 100 per cent, and only these would help to arrest the spread of the disease.
The Health Ministry said red and orange zones have been defined in such a way so as to ensure that no critical area of intervention at the field level is missed out. "Ruthless containment measures to break the chain of transmission will be taken in red and orange zones... Number of cumulative cases and doubling rates were factored in among others, to distribute districts in red, orange and green zones," said Agarwal.
The ministry said state/UTs and district administrations are, through focused efforts, required to ensure that the districts where cases have come up i.e. red and orange zones, can break the chain of transmission through effective and stringent containment measures.
"Testing of all cases as per sampling guidelines, contact tracing and clinical management of all confirmed cases need to be done while in case of buffer zones, extensive surveillance for cases through monitoring ILI/SARI cases in health facilities needs to be done," it said.
( With inputs from IANS )