COVID cases not naming contacts: H&FW

November 1, 2020 57 Views No Comment

DIMAPUR, OCT 31 (NPN): State Health & Family Welfare (H&FW) department, in its weekly report on COVID-19 released on Saturday, once again expressed serious concern that the State was noticing an alarming situation where positive cases are “not naming contacts to the contact tracing teams due to pressure from peers.”

While pointing out that contact tracing is a very effective time-tested method to break the transmission of any infectious disease, the department warned that it is a punishable offence under the Epidemic Disease Act if one does not name contacts or come for testing, as they will be directly held responsible for spreading the disease.

The digital surveillance teams and cyber security were on track to identify such offenders, H&FW stated.

The department said that testing was also free for whoever falls under the contact tracing list and for symptomatic cases. “All contacts as decided by the surveillance teams are isolated and tested accordingly,” it added.

It further went on to point out that among the traced contacts, the most affected age group was 21-40 years.

“The high positivity rate among the 21-40 years is alarming. The uncontrolled spread among these age groups poses an increased risk in the higher age groups,” the department said. The report also stated that percentage of traced contacts among confirmed cases increased from 7% in July to 57% as of October 2020.

With October month having reported the maximum number of cases and deaths till date, the department said that Nagaland’s sample positivity rate (9.15%) also continued to remain higher than the national average (7.48%). H&FW said that ICU admissions had also increased five times during the month of October while 15 out of 33 deaths were reported in October alone ( 73% deaths from Dimapur).

60% of all deaths were below 60 years of age with hypertension and diabetes being the most common associated comorbidities. This is alarming due to the high prevalence of non-communicable diseases (hypertension, diabetes, heart diseases) in the state, the department stated.

The Health department expressed concern that the state has been witnessing surge in COVID cases in close contact settings like household, offices, restaurants, prison, church, old age home etc. with household (28%) and offices (23%) being the most common places.

Nagaland COVID tally 9047

Nagaland COVID-19 tally breached the 9000-mark after–102 new cases were detected on Saturday– 84 in Dimapur, 16 in Kohima and 2 in Mon, taking the tally to 9,047.

Further, out of 9047 positive cases, the distribution across various categories include 3934 from the armed forces/police, 1656 returnees, 3019 traced contacts and 438 frontline workers.

Source: http://www.nagalandpost.com/covid-cases-not-naming-contacts-h-fw/223940.html