Gandhinagar, (Samajweekly) With a total of 175 positive cases in the state and 14 deaths as of Tuesday, the Gujarat government announced that intense survey, under the Cluster Containment Strategy, will be continued in 24 identified hotspots in five major cities – Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot and Bhavnagar.
The state saw ten more positive cases and two more deaths as two males (47) from Patan and (52) from Surat succumbed to the dreaded disease. Both the patients were admitted to hospitals with comorbid conditions like hypertension and diabetes.
Two more patients – both males – were discharged on Tuesday in Vadodara and Bhavnagar. A total of 25 patients have been discharged do far. Out of the total admitted, the condition of 126 is stable while four are still on ventilator, including the 14-month-old infant from Jamnagar.
Meanwhile, the continued intensified surveillance in the 24 hotspots brought into light, ten more positive cases in Gujarat. Five males and five females were detected in Ahmedabad, Surat and Rajkot.
“Eight out of these might be having direct or indirect link with Nizamuddin Markaz (where the Tablighi Jamaat congregation was held in Delhi), but we aren’t sure. The police investigation will tell,” state Principal Secretary, Health, Jayanti Ravi, said.
“We have declared certain areas in Ahmedabad – Bapunagar, Kalupur, Dariyapur, Jamalpur, two areas in Danilimda and Shah-E-Alam and Ambawadi as well Nagarwada and Syedpura in Vadodara, Rander, Begumpura and Sachin area in Surat and Sandhyawada and Ruvapari area in Bhavnagar and certain areas in Rajkot to be hotspots. A strict and ruthless lockdown will be continued in these areas,” said Ravi.
“We have deployed a total of 143 teams in five corporation areas, which are not only locked down but sealed as no entry or exit is allowed. Our medical teams will be accompanied by the municipal corporation authorities and the police,” Ravi added.
In Ahmedabad’s hotspots, there are total 97,986 people where 16 teams have been deployed for the surveillance. In Surat’s hotspots, there are total 24,674 people where 63 teams have been deployed for the surveillance. In Bhavnagar’s hotspots, there are total 21,660 people where 30 teams have been deployed for the surveillance.
For Vadodara’s cluster areas surveillance of 8,220 people, 11 teams have been deployed. While for Rajkot’s hotspot areas, 23 teams have been deployed to carry out door to door intensified survey of 2,488 people. A total of 143 teams will be carry out surveillance of 1,55,028 people in these five major cities.
“A second round of survey has also been started by the Health Department. We are now focusing the surveillance in the rural areas, where inter-state travel history, inter-district travel history, cases like Influenza-like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) will be looked for,” Ravi said.
“In this second round, not only do we want to check on virus symptoms, but also want to encourage people to self report. We will be taking the help of TECO app for this. We are also planning to incorporate the Interactive Voice Recognition System into this so that from the database we have, information can be gathered,” added Ravi.
The maximum number of cases in the state are in Ahmedabad at 83, followed by Surat with 22, Bhavnagar with 14, Gandhinagar with 13, Vadodara with 12, Rajkot with 11, Patan five, Porbandar three, Kutch, Mehsana and Gir-Somnath two each and one each in Panchmahal, Chhota Udepur, Jamnagar, Morbi, Anand and Sabarkantha.