Covid-19: Central team in Kerala to verify high cases, backlog deaths

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A three-member central team has reached the state in view of the high Covid-19 cases and deaths, including the backlog ones, being reported from the state.

The team members, Dr P Ravindran, advisor, Disaster Management Cell, ministry of health and family welfare; Dr Ruchi Jain, public health specialist, ministry of health and family welfare and Dr Pranay Verma, joint director, National Centre for Disease Control reached the state capital on Monday.

Team also probing backlog in deaths

They had a detailed discussion with officials at the directorate of health services and visited General Hospital, one of the major Covid treatment centres in the district. It is learnt that the expert team also verified case sheets of those who succumbed to Covid in the district.

Besides deaths, the team is also probing the huge backlog of deaths being reported from the state. Health officials are learnt to have apprised it that the backlog came up following the Supreme Court directive to revise guidelines for determining Covid deaths.

They have submitted that all appeals in this regard received by authorities are being considered by the district-level death ascertaining committees. The state has reported 43,170 Covid deaths so far, of which 9,516 have been added from appeals it received after June 18, 2021. However, 3,779 appeals are kept pending on deaths that occurred before June 18.

The central team will be visiting Kottayam on Tuesday. It will be visiting hospitals and verifying casesheets of reported deaths. The team has also been asked to look into testing, contact tracing, surveillance, containment operations, etc in the wake of more cases being reported from the state.