Agra, May 11 (IANS): The Uttar Pradesh government has removed Agra CMO Mukesh Vats and Additional Director Health and Family Welfare A.K. Mittal, replacing hem with R.C. Pande and Avinash Singh as the Covid-19 crisis continued to surge in the Taj city.

Against the rising crescendo of discontent over poor health services and daily reports of callous negligence or indifference of various departments, the state government late on Sunday dispatched senior officials, Principal Secretary Alok Kumar and IG Police Vijay Kumar to Agra, to help bring the situation under control.

According to District Magistrate P.N. Singh, the number of deaths from Covid-19, was 25, while the tally on Monday morning was 752. So far 325 patients have recovered from the virus. The city now has 44 hotspots. More than 9,000 samples have been tested.

The situation was much better in the Agra Cantonment areas where the lockdown was effectively enforced. The police has been blamed for laxity and lack of seriousness in controlling movement of people in the hotspots.

Representatives of many voluntary groups involved in supply of essentials and Medicare, were dissatisfied and had pointed out loopholes in the system, particularly in the quarantine centres. Over a dozen media persons, according to reports, were also lodged in the quarantine centres which have seen a mass influx of migrant labourers who continued to pour into the district.

At the Rajasthan border, at several points senior officials had to diffuse face-offs between the Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan police.

Meanwhile, a senior homeopath of the city, Siddharth Mishra, has urged the state government, to give homeopathic medicines, a chance, as was done effectively in Kerala. "Kerala government had distributed homeopathy medicines to 45 lakh people to boost immunity," Mishra said.