Central teams are being deputed to provide technical support and handhold the state health departments and the municipal health officials in reviewing steps being taken to tackle Covid-19 in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi and Bengaluru.
Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu have been severely hit by the pandemic.
The teams will visit these cities within a week to review public health measures. They will submit their daily reports to the state health department and the Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. They will inform them on any issue of urgent importance and also submit a report before concluding the visit.
The idea is to find any gap in the approach to address the pandemic outbreak and address it before numbers spike further.
Meanwhile, in the past 24 hours, 5,991 patients have been cured. This takes the number of recovered patients to 1,35,205. The number of active cases is 1,33,632. For the first time, the number of recovered patients has exceeded the active cases. The recovery rate now stands at 48.88 per cent.
The ICMR has conducted 50,61,332 tests. In the past 24 hours, it has tested 1,45,216 samples.
"The ICMR has continued to ramp up the testing capacity for detecting coronavirus cases. The number of government labs has increased to 590 and private labs to 233," it said in a statement.
( With inputs from IANS )