Following an upsurge of COVID-19 cases in some States, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya chaired a meeting with key experts and officials on Thursday to review the situation.
The Minister yet again stressed the need to focus on districts reporting high case positivity and undertake adequate testing (with higher proportion of RT-PCR) and effective COVID-19 surveillance to assess and control the spread of infection in a timely manner.
Dr. Mandaviya directed the officials to continue to focus on surveillance and on whole genome sequencing (WGS) to scan for any possible mutation. The State governments have been instructed to monitor hospitalisations due to COVID-19 and severe acute respiratory infection/influenza-like illness (SARI/ILI).
The Minister, speaking on the COVID vaccination process, said “there should be no vaccine wastage, while focusing on accelerating vaccination among the eligible and vulnerable groups”.
The meeting was attended by Dr. Ajay K Sood, principal scientific adviser; Dr. Balram Bhargava, Director-General, Indian Council of Medical Research; Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha, Secretary, AYUSH, among others.
