Lucknow, Aug 13 (IANS): A sudden surge in the number of Covid-19 cases in Maharajganj district of Uttar Pradesh has become a major cause of concern for the state government.

This surge comes at a time when Covid cases across the state are declining and the state is on its way to becoming Covid free.

As per data, 10 cases have been reported in Maharajganj in the past 24 hours against one or two cases that were being reported since the past two weeks.

All the new cases have no travel history and have not travelled beyond Gorakhpur which is about 55 kilometres from Maharajganj.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has directed officials to look into the reasons behind the surge and intensify testing and tracking in the area.

Meanwhile, 43 new cases were reported in the past 24 hours. The health bulletin said that the cases were reported from 23 districts.

Uttar Pradesh is now left with less than 500 active cases which is more than 99 per cent less than the peak figure of 3.10 lakh touched on April 30.

Additional Chief Secretary (ACS) health and family welfare Amit Mohan Prasad reiterated the importance of vaccination and adherence to Covid protocol in keeping the virus in check.

The state government has announced the launch of two campaigns to intensify Covid surveillance work.

For this, a house-to-house drive to screen Covid suspects across 30,000 villages would be organised between August 19 and 30.

"In this exercise, the field health workers will cover villages under their domain to screen people with fever and get them tested for Covid infection. They will apprise people about the importance of Covid protocols," said Prasad.

He added that the second drive would begin from August 16 to keep an eye on adherence to Covid-19 prevention protocols.