Earlier in the day, an assembly held between the Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and senior fitness officials regarding the emergence of new subvariants of Omicron.
Health officials reviewed the scenario of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, the vaccination campaign and the global scenario of new variants of COVID-19.
Bureaucrat Lav Agarwal gave a detailed presentation on the global situation of an increase in COVID cases, basically in Europe and an investigation of the other variants of Omicron around the world.
The presentation included a detailed investigation of the COVID-19 scenario in the country with the trend of Covid-19 cases; instances reported, active instances, positivity of cases and control status, as well as weekly controls according to state according to million, adding a corresponding percentage of RT-PCR in the controls as performed.
Manohar Agnani, AS (MoHFW) made a presentation on the existing immunization in the country, the availability of vaccines and state-by-state research of vaccine management and highlighted the slowness in the delivery of precautionary doses in the country.
The Union Health Minister under pressure wants to adopt good enough tests (with a higher proportion of RTPCR) and effective surveillance of Covid-19 to assess and spread the infection in a timely manner.
Mandaviya ordered officials to continue to focus on surveillance across the country, i. e. through sentinel sites, adding surveillance of AIRS and OS instances, and whole genome sequencing (WGS) to detect any mutation imaginable by following the identity of Omicron variants in other countries. He also suggested officials keep a close eye on hospitalizations due to COVID-19.
He suggested expanding the speed of vaccination, adding precautionary doses to eligible beneficiaries.
The assembly was attended by Ajay Kumar Sood, Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government, S Aparna, Secretary (Pharmaceuticals), Rajiv Bahl, DG ICMR; and other senior officials of the Ministry of Health. (ANI)