Maha health dept asks district administrations and municipal corporations to ramp up Covid-19 testing

Maharashtra health department asked all the District administrations and municipal corporations to increase Covid-19 tests. While the fatality rate and hospitalisation are going down in Maharashtra, Covid-19 cases are witnessing a surge in some countries, an official release said.

In view of this, it said, health minister Tanaji Sawant directed all the districts to follow a five-point program test, track, treat, vaccinate and (ensure) Covi-19 appropriate behaviour.

Sawant on Wednesday held a meeting with health department officials of all the districts and municipal corporations. It was also attended by principal secretary, health, Sanjay Khandare and health services director Dr Sadhana Tayde.

While asking all the district administrations and municipal corporations to increase COVID-19 tests, especially RT-PCR tests, Sawant also directed them to send every RT-PCR affected (having CT value less than 30) swab sample for genome sequencing, for which seven laboratories are available in the state.

As per the release, the number of COVID-19 cases in the state is falling and this week the number of new cases dipped by 30 percent compared to the previous week. Positivity rate has gone down by 0.29 per cent and in Akola, Pune, Ahmednagar and Jalgaon districts the rate is below one.