The union health ministry has pulled up states for not undertaking “enough contact tracing”, saying that the lack of this exercise will defeat the aim of “trace, test and treat” campaign for containing the spread of covid-19 in the country.
“It has been observed that in some states, delineation of containment zones and contact tracing has not been undertaken with the rigour and meticulousness that is required,” Preeti Sudan, secretary at the health ministry, has said in a letter to states and union territories.
“While you will take immediate steps to facilitate and ramp up testing in your state, it is expected that equal attention will be paid to ‘contact tracing’ as it holds the key to containing the virus.”
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), contact tracing is the process of identifying, assessing, and managing people who have been exposed to the novel coronavirus to prevent transmission. When applied systematically, contact tracing is said to break the transmission chain.
“No excuse for contact tracing. If any country is saying contact tracing is difficult, it is a lame excuse,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general, WHO, said on Wednesday.
Large states or those with high density of population such as Maharashtra and Delhi have been finding it difficult to undertake the exercise.
The home ministry recently ordered Delhi to conduct fresh delineation of containment zones, step up contact tracing, and to quarantine those affected.
The national capital has reported over 89,000 cases, of which 27,000 are active. Maharashtra has reported 1,80,298 cases.
Karnataka has also faced problems with contact tracing.
“When the covid-19 cases have reached in lakhs, contact tracing is also becoming a challenge though the government has been trying to trace each and every contact of the covid-19 patient,” said Rajnikant Srivastava, head, research management, policy planning and coordination cell, ICMR.
Sudan in her letter said while it is good that India’s morbidity and mortality rates have been relatively low, the virus has continued to spread. “In this backdrop, it is important to maintain strict vigil and continue to make all possible efforts to minimise the damage that can be caused by this pandemic. With the start of Unlock-2, focus will continue to be on saving lives and also protecting livelihood as more and more economic activities are expected to pick up gradually.”
Pretika Khanna and Sharan Poovanna contributed to this story