Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya will be visiting Kerala on August 16 to review the Covid-19 situation in the southern state. He is also likely to visit Guwahati in Assam on August 17 for holding a review meeting there, sources said.
According to the sources, the Union minister is likely to meet Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, and hold a meeting with state Health Minister Veena George and other officials involved in Covid management there.
Mandaviya will be accompanied by the director of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and other senior officials of the health ministry. Covid continues to rage in Kerala and on Friday Kerala reported 20,452 new coronavirus cases and 114 deaths due to the infection, taking the caseload to 3,62,090 and the death toll to 18,394.
A statement issued by the Chief Minister said 20,452 new cases were registered after 1,42,501 samples were sent for testing in the past 24 hours, and the daily Covid Test Positivity Rate (TPR) was 14.35 per cent, the third successive when it was above 14 per cent. There were also 16,856 recoveries, while the number of total active cases stood at 1,80,000.
Assam’s COVID-19 tally mounted to 5,78,733 as 763 more people tested positive for the infection, while 20 fresh fatalities pushed the death toll to 5,471, the National Health Mission said in a bulletin.