Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Thursday directed officials to continue to focus on surveillance and whole genome sequencing to scan any possible mutations while stressing on adequate testing and effective monitoring to assess the spread of COVID-19 in a timely manner.
Mr. Mandaviya, who chaired a meeting with key experts and officials amid an upsurge of COVID-19 cases in some States, stressed the need to focus on districts reporting high case positivity and undertake adequate testing (with higher proportion of RT-PCR) and effective surveillance to assess and control the spread of the infection in a timely manner, the Union Health ministry said in a statement.
The Minister directed officials to continue to focus on surveillance and on whole genome sequencing (WGS) to scan for any possible mutation, it said.
He also directed officials to monitor hospitalizations due to COVID-19, and SARI/ILI cases, the statement stated.
He exhorted them to increase the pace of vaccination, including booster doses, in districts reporting high cases.
“As there is adequate vaccine doses available, let there be no vaccine wastage while focusing on accelerating vaccination among the eligible and vulnerable groups,” he said.
In the meeting, Health ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal made a detailed presentation on the global scenario of surge in cases and status of COVID-19 in the country, the statement said. This included presentation and analysis of the trend of Covid cases, daily and active cases, positivity and deaths, testing status along with State-wise weekly tests per million, RT-PCR share in weekly tests, genome sequencing and vaccination status, it added.
India has been witnessing an increase in coronavirus infections over the last couple of weeks.
As on date, ten States — Maharashtra, Kerala, Delhi, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal and Gujarat — have over 1,000 active cases.
The death toll has climbed to 5,24,941 with 38 new fatalities, the data updated at 8 a.m. stated.
In a review meeting of INSACOG held last week, States/UTs were asked to submit "larger number" of samples for whole genome sequencing from districts and areas which have seen a surge in COVID-19 cases over a period of seven days.
The direction was issued to check the possibility of any new emerging variant or sub-variant and ascertain the reasons behind the breakthrough infections, sources had said.
According to the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) experts, Omicron and its sublineages, primarily BA. 2 and BA.2.38, as of now, seem to be behind the current rise in Covid cases, an official source had said.
The BA.2 and its sublineages constitute over 85 per cent of the cases with BA.2.38 being found in around 33 per cent of the samples.
The percentage of BA.4 and BA.5 is found in less than 10% samples, they had said.
43 districts in India, including 11 from Kerala, six from Mizoram and five from Maharashtra, are reporting a weekly Covid positivity rate of more than 10%. In 42 districts, including eight from Rajasthan, five from Delhi and four from Tamil Nadu, the weekly positivity is between 5 and 10%, sources said.
