New Delhi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday chaired a meeting via video conference with the Chief Ministers of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana for a unified strategy to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his counterparts in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, Yogi Adityanath and Manohar Lal Khattar, respectively, shared the measures being undertaken to check the spread of coronavirus as well as the preparedness to treat the patients in their respective states.

Shah emphasised on the need to focus on more testing of people suspected of Covid-19 so that the infection rate in the National Capital Region (NCR) could be controlled.

The Home Minister said that adoption of more testing via Rapid Antigen Test Kits will help bring the infection transmission rate below 10 per cent as suggested by the World Health Organization.

He said that nearly 90 per cent of screening is possible through these kits, which can be provided by the Centre to the governments of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Haryana in numbers desired by them.

Emphasising on the importance of the humanitarian perspective to save the lives of the poor and the needy, Shah said the focus should be on early hospitalisation of patients, so that the mortality rate can be reduced.

He also emphasised on the wide use of the Aarogya Setu and Itihas apps to help Covid-19 mapping in the NCR.

Shah added that the AIIMS Delhi telemedicine consultation model should be replicated in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana also.

Training for doctors in small hospitals in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana can be provided by AIIMS with the help of Tele-videography, he suggested.

V.K. Paul, Member, NITI Aayog, also gave a presentation on the strategy to tackle Covid-19 in the NCR. He provided details of the best practices adopted in Delhi-NCR and on the way ahead.

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and senior officials of the Central as well as Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi governments were present in the meeting.

Delhi has reported 89,802 Covid-19 cases so far, including 2,803 deaths. In Uttar Pradesh, the Covid-19 tally during the day reached 24,056, including 718 deaths.

Nearly 2,400 people have been infected in Gautam Buddh Nagar of which 22 have died. In Ghaziabad, the tally has crossed 850 with reports of 56 deaths.

In Haryana, 14,941 Covid-19 cases and 240 fatalities have been reported so far. Gurgaon and Faridabad districts have reported 92 and 80 deaths, respectively. The two districts jointly account for 9,300 cases.

On June 18, the Home Minister had held a similar meeting at his North Block office to implement a common strategy to tackle the pandemic. It was attended by Kejriwal, Delhi Police Commissioner S.N. Shrivastava, and senior officials from the NCR districts, Ministries of Home and Health, and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

Authorities in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi have imposed restrictions at different times on the movement of people between the states.

The Home Minister also held an all-party meeting last month, in which he urged all the political parties to set aside political differences and unite to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.