NEW DELHI, May 5 - The biggest single day spike of 3,900 novel coronavirus cases and 195 fatalities has been reported in the last 24 hours till Tuesday morning, the Union Health Ministry said, asserting that the delay in reporting of COVID-19 cases by certain states has led to the sudden spurt in figures.
Addressing a press briefing, joint secretary at the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said timely reporting of cases and their management is very crucial while dealing with an infectious disease.
The ministry released a data for cases and deaths from Monday 8 am to Tuesday 8 am. It said in this 24 hours period, India registered a record single day increase of 195 deaths and 3,900 cases, taking the total number of COVID-19 fatalities to 1,568 and cases to 46,433.
�Some states had not been reporting COVID-19 cases timely. After persuading them, they have reported such cases. This is the reason for the sudden spurt in the number of cases since yesterday,� Agarwal said, adding that the issue has been addressed.
�We are very comfortable in terms of managing COVID-19 as of now, but any laxity at the field level or any lack of cooperation may have its consequences, he warned.
Agarwal advised states to effectively implement contact tracing, active case search and focus on the clinical management of cases on the basis of the numbers reported.
Asked if West Bengal was not reporting cases properly as a sudden spike of deaths has been reported there, he said, �We coordinated with the state government and it was ensured that whatever late reporting of cases was happening gets streamlined. The state government has reported to us the additional cases.�
An increase of 98 fatalities due to COVID-19 and 296 cases have been reported from West Bengal so far since Monday morning.
Ensuring timely reporting of cases along with implementation of field level action is important while dealing with an infectious disease, Agarwal said.
Asserting that it is important that each and every contact of positive patients needs to be traced, Agarwal said conducting surveillance for Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) and influenza like illness (ILI) symptoms in facilities in containment zones and otherwise, yields very valuable data and guides further action. � PTI
