Fri. Mar 29th, 2024
Health Minister Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya chairs meeting to review COVID-19 situation in India

Union Health Minister Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya on Wednesday chaired a high-level meeting to review the COVID-19 situation in India and preparedness of the public health system for surveillance, containment and management of COVID-19.  The meeting was called in view of the recent spike in cases of COVID-19 in China, Japan, South Korea, France and the United States.

Senior officials and public health experts briefed the Union Health Minister on the global COVID19 situation and the domestic scenario. A new and highly transmissible BF.7 strain of the Omicron variant has been found to be behind a wider surge of COVID infections in China.

The Union Health Minister noted the importance of being prepared and remaining alert against new and emerging strains of COVID-19, that too when the  festive season is coming.

He reiterated that COVID is not over yet, he directed the officials to be fully prepared and strengthen surveillance. He appealed to people to follow COVID Appropriate Behaviour and get vaccinated against COVID.

Dr Mandaviya directed to strengthen the surveillance system for whole genome sequencing of positive case samples to track the variants through the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) network.

States and union territories have been requested to send samples of all COVID-19 positive cases to INSACOG Genome Sequencing Laboratories (IGSLs) on a daily basis, for sequencing, to track new variants, if any.

In a presentation, the Union Health Minister was briefed that India has been witnessing a steady decline in cases with average daily cases falling to 158 in the week ending 19th Dec, 2022. However, a consistent rise in global daily average cases has been reported since the last 6 weeks, with 5.9 lakh daily average cases reported in the week ending 19th Dec, 2022. 

The Health Minister directed officials to ensure effective implementation of the already issued “Operational Guidelines for Revised Surveillance Strategy in context of COVID-19”.

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