Central expert team to visit State today

The team which will reach Chennai airport through a special flight on Wednesday afternoon and will be headed by Sunil Sharma Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), New Delhi. Three other members are Dr P Ravindran, Director, Electronic Medical Records (EMR) New Delhi, Rajendra Ratnoo, Joint Secretary DPIIT, New Delhi, and Dr Suhas Dhandore, Deputy Director, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

Government sources said that after their arrival, the team will hold meeting with Chief Secretary K Shanmugam on ways of assisting the State Health department in COVID-19 management. The team is likely to stay in the State for one week to monitor the situation to cull down the rising number of cases in the State.

Earlier, the first expert team from the Centre visited Chennai for one week from April 24 to May 1 and visited various places in the city to check whether social distancing and other lockdown norms issued by the government are followed. The team from National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) also visited hospitals in the city and the facilities made to quarantined patients.

The Union government on Saturday decided to rush central teams to ten states which have either major COVID-19 caseloads or are witnessing a high spurt in cases. The states where the teams are being sent include Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana