Lucknow, Jul 13 (IANS): A surge of 28 new Covid cases in Sitapur district and 20 new cases in Sultanpur have become a cause of worry for the Uttar Pradesh government, especially since Covid cases in all other districts are showing an appreciable downtrend.

The cases were recorded on Monday.

A team of experts has been sent to these two districts to assess the reasons for the surge in cases.

Health teams from the surveillance unit have reached Sitapur and Sultanpur to collect details. Samples of patients will also be sent for genome sequencing.

Nodal officer Sitapur Dr P.K. Singh said, "The patients belong to three different areas. None of them has a travel history. Each of the 28 cases was asymptomatic. In fact, some of them were attendants of patients brought to the health facility. Strangely, they tested negative."

In Sultanpur, 25 cases have surfaced in two days.

Chief Medical Officer Dr D.K. Tripathi said 10 of these 25 belong to the same family while others are scattered over five villages.

"The source of infection in the family of 10 is a youth who returned from Kolhapur while the others belong to other villages. Containment and contact activities were carried out in all places," he said.

Meanwhile, 96 new cases were reported from 33 districts till Monday night while 42 districts recorded zero cases.

The new cases took the total to 17,07,446 of which 16,83,170 (or 98.6 per cent) have recovered. The state recorded two Covid deaths taking the total loss of lives to 22,700.

There are 1,576 active cases now with three districts having zero active cases and another three having more than 100 active cases.