Hyderabad: The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has on Wednesday classified eight districts of Telangana as hot spots, which will fall under the Red Zone category.
The eight hotspot districts that have witnessed large outbreak are Hyderabad, Nizamabad, Warangal (Urban), Rangareddy, Jogulamba Gadwal, Medchal-Malkajgiri, Karimnagar and Nirmal. The Health Ministry has classified Nalgonda as hotspot district with clusters and not large scale outbreaks.
There are 19 more districts in Telangana that come under the Orange Zone and have been classified as non-hotspot districts that have reported Covid-19 positive cases. These are Suryapet, Adilabad, Mahabubnagar, Kamareddy, Vikarabad, Sangareddy, Medak, Khammam, Bhadradri Kothagudem, Jagtiyal, Jangaon, Jayashankar Bhupalpally, Kumaram Bheem Asifabad, Mulugu, Peddapalli, Nagarkurnool, Mahabubabad, Rajanna Sircilla and Siddipet.
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In all, throughout the country, there are 170 districts classified as Red Zones and 207 districts classified as Orange Zones. Within the Red zones, there are 123 hotspot districts with large outbreaks (eight districts from TS) and 47 hotspot districts with clusters.
MoHFW Secretary Preeti Sudan urged States to strictly implement containment plans so that districts in the Red and Orange zones can quickly move into Green Zones, which are non-infected districts.
Sudan also urged States to identify hotspots based on the doubling rate of Covid-19 confirmed cases.
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“The exercise of identification of hotspots has to be done on a weekly-basis or earlier. Strict containment measures need to be implemented in these hotspots,” she said, adding that States have to ensure containment measures in Orange Zones as well, so as to curb the pandemic there.
Sudan also made it clear that State health authorities must undertake effective surveillance of all Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) and Influenza like Illness (ILI) cases in districts not having any confirmed cases and also ensure that dedicated Covid-19 hospitals are available.
A district currently in a hotspot (Red Zone) can move to green category (Green Zone) if no new Covid-19 cases are reported for 28 days. The districts that are Red Zones will become Orange Zone if not a single Covid-19 positive case is reported in 14 days and move into Green Zone when no Covid-19 cases are reported in 28 days.
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Districts where Covid-19 cases are doubling in less than four days and those districts that contribute to more than 80 per cent of the cases for each State are classified as hotspots or Red Zones. Those districts that have reported cases of Covid-19 but not in large outbreaks or clusters have been classified as Orange Zones.