<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #222222;">Amid the rise in Covid-19 cases, the Centre has written to the Maharashtra government asking it to step up vaccination and testing and renewed attention to ensuring Covid-19 appropriate behaviour. Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan wrote a letter to State's Additional Chief Secretary, Health, Dr Pradeep Vyas. He warned that the upcoming months are likely to witness mass gatherings due to festivals, leading to a large number of individuals undertaking intra and interstate journeys. He said, this may potentially facilitate the transmission of infectious diseases, including Covid-19.</span></p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br />''</p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #222222;">Mr Bhushan has highlighted critical areas of concern based on an analysis of various districts. Accordingly, he has asked the state to closely monitor districts reporting higher cases, positivity rates and clusters to prevent further spread of infection.</span></p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br />''</p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #222222;">Mr Bhushan also instructed the state to monitor and report district-wise influenza-like illness (ILI) and SARI (severe acute respiratory illness) cases in all health facilities on a regular basis for detecting early warning signals of the spread of infection.</span></p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br />''</p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #222222;">The Health Secretary said, Maharashtra has been reporting high average daily new cases for the past one month with a high of 1,862 new cases reported yesterday. He also highlighted that 5 districts including Pune, Nagpur, Gondia, Sangli and Nanded have reported more than 10% weekly positivity in the week ending 4th August 2022.</span></p>