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Amid a surge in COVID-19 cases in Japan, South Korea, Brazil, China and the United States, the central government on Tuesday suggested all states and union territories prepare whole-genome sequencing of positive samples to track emerging variants.
In a letter to states and UTs, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said such training will enable timely detection of new variants, if any, circulating in the country and facilitate the implementation of required public fitness measures.
He noted that India, focusing on the five-pronged approach of testing-tracking-treatment-vaccination and compliance with Covid appropriate behavior, has been to limit the transmission of the coronavirus and has around 1200 cases per week.
The challenge of the public fitness of Covid-19 still persists around the world with around 35 lakh of cases reported each week, Bhushan said.
In his letter, he also referred to the operational rules for the revised surveillance strategy in the context of Covid-19 issued by the ministry in June this year. It calls for early stumbling onion, isolation and immediate control of suspected cases and shown to stumble and involve outbreaks of new variants of SARS-CoV-2.
“Therefore, tracking trends of existing variants is important,” he said.
“Given the sudden accumulation of cases observed in Japan, the United States of America, the Republic of Korea, Brazil and China, it is imperative to prepare whole-genome sequencing of positive case samples to track Indian SARS variants. CoV. -2 genomics consortium (INSACOG) network,” he said.
“In this context, all states are asked to ensure that, as far as possible, samples from all positive cases, on a basis, are sent to designated INSACOG genome laboratories that are assigned to states and UTs,” he added.
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