The Centre on Wednesday asked States to ramp up testing among vulnerable groups in the 353 districts that have not reported any COVID-19 cases so far. The ‘unaffected’ districts need to be under enhanced surveillance for influenza like illnesses (ILI) and severe acute respiratory illness (SARI), the Centre said. The Centre said that in severe cases where healthcare professionals were infected, the patients “should be treated with HCQ in the prescribed dose”. The Centre noted that while there were 170 districts defined as “hotspots” or red zones, there were another “207 districts that have reported cases and could be a potential hotspot”. A district could be excluded from the hotspot category if no cases were reported there in the last 28 days.

Source: The Hindu April 15, 2020 17:48 UTC