Surveillance: How Kerala's immigration hotspot curbed Covid-19 transmission

Through contact tracing, the team was able to track nearly 98% of all primary and secondary contacts, who have been advised home- or hospital-isolation, district collector PB Nooh told IndiaSpend

Pathanamthitta: On March 11, 2020, Pathanamthitta, a migration hotspot in southeastern Kerala, became the district with the highest number of cases in the state. Among the districts with lowest poverty rates in the state in India, it had nine cases, all linked to foreign travellers and their primary contacts.

Most of those who were infected had travelled widely across the district before they were diagnosed with the infection, it was later found. This, along with the fact that the virus’ reproductive number--the number of secondary infections generated from one infected individual--is 2 to 2.5 persons, had led to fears that the district