NEW DELHI: The Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan has written a letter to the officials of five states including Kerala, Karanataka, Maharashtra, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu to closely monitor emerging clusters of COVID-19 cases and maintain an adequate number of tests, and send samples from infected individuals for genome sequencing. "There are few states which are reporting a higher contribution to India's cases indicating the possibility of a localised spread of infection. There is, therefore, a need to follow a risk assessment based approach on the public health responses without losing the gains made so far in the fight against the pandemic," read the letter.

The state is advised to follow a five-fold strategy i.e test - track - treat - vaccination and should also follow COVID-19 appropriate behaviour, monitoring clusters of new COVID-19 cases and adequate testing as per guidelines. Bhusan pointed out that a sustained and significant decline in the number of Covid-19 cases has been observed in India over the past 3 months. He said, in the past one week, a slight upsurge in cases is being noticed as 15,708 cases were reported in the week ending 27th May which has gone up to 21,055 cases till June 3. There is also a rise in weekly positivity from 0.52 per cent to 0.73 per cent during the week, he added.