Hyderabad: Telangana government has sounded a high alert due to a spike in Covid-19 cases in neighbouring states, Maharashtra and Karnataka.
State Health Minister Eatala Rajender has asked officials to immediately increase testing.
During meetings and a teleconference with officials and hospital superintendents, he said that at least 50,000 samples should be tested every day and the policy of ‘testing, tracing and treating’ should be strictly followed.
Special instructions to districts bordering Maharashtra
The minister issued special instructions to district medical and health officers of Nizamabad, Kamareddy, Adilabad, Asifabad, Mancherial, Jayashankar Bhupalapally, and Jagtial districts bordering Maharashtra.
The Minister also urged citizens to follow the COVID-19 safety protocol like mandatory wearing of masks, maintaining social distancing, and frequent hand washing.
Meanwhile, Telangana reported 181 new Covid-19 cases and one death during the last 24 hours, said health officials on Friday.
The fresh cases pushed the cumulative tally to 3,00,717 while the toll reached 1,650.
Coronavirus cases rise in Greater Hyderabad area
After several weeks, the daily Covid-19 count in the Greater Hyderabad area jumped to 44. Rangareddy reported the second-highest number of cases at 19 followed by Medchal Malkajgiri at 15 and Nizamabad with 10. Eight districts reported no cases while in the remaining 21 districts, the daily count was in single digit.
On Friday, Maharashtra recorded this year’s highest one-day spike on the third day in a row with 15,817 new infections.
Karnataka has been continuing to see an uptrend in fresh cases, with 833 more people testing positive on Friday.
With inputs from agencies