"Stay alert, be prepared for Covid management": Union Health Minister

NEW DELHI: In view of increasing cases of Covid-19, Union Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, who chaired a review meeting with states on Friday, asked them to stay alert and remain prepared for the management of the disease.

Mandaviya further urged the State Health Ministers to conduct mock drills of all hospital infrastructure on April 10 and 11 and review the health preparedness with district administrations and health officials on April 8 and 9.

Union Health Minister Dr Mansukh Mandaviya on Friday chaired a review meeting with health ministers of all states and Union Territories through video conferencing.

He also urged states to identify emerging hotspots by monitoring trends of influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) cases and sending sufficient samples for testing of COVID-19 and Influenza; and ramping up whole genome sequencing of positive samples.

It was observed that 23 states and UTs had average tests per million below the national average.

"Irrespective of the new COVID variants, the five-fold strategy of 'Test-Track-Treat-Vaccinate and Adherence to COVID Appropriate Behaviour' continue to remain the tested strategy for COVID management.

This would facilitate the undertaking of appropriate public health measures, he said," Mandaviya said. According to the union health ministry, states and UTs were also requested to expeditiously increase the rate of testing from the current rate of 100 tests per million, as of the week ending 7th April and further advised to increase the share of RT-PCR in tests.

"States and UTs were briefed that India has been witnessing a steady increase in COVID-19 cases with average daily cases rising to 4,188 in the week ending April 7 from 571 in the week ending March 17, and weekly positivity up to 3.02 per cent in the week ending April 7," the ministry official press release said. However, 88,503 daily average cases have been reported globally in the same time, with the top five countries contributing 62.6 per cent of global cases in the last one week.

"States and UTs were further informed that currently WHO is closely tracking one variant of interest (VOI), XBB.1.5 and six other variants are under monitoring (BQ.1, BA.2.75, CH.1.1, XBB, XBF and XBB.1.16). It was highlighted that while Omicron and its sub-lineages continue to be the predominant variant, most of the assigned variants have little or no significant transmissibility, disease severity or immune escape.

The prevalence of XBB.1.16 increased from 21.6% in Feb to 35.8 per cent in March. However, no evidence of an increase in hospitalization or mortality has been reported," it added. It was also informed that while India has achieved over 90 per cent coverage of primary vaccination, the coverage of precaution dose is very low.

According to the ministry, eight states are reporting a high number of Covid cases in India with 10 or more districts reporting more than 10 per cent positivity in Kerala, Maharashtra and Delhi and over 5 districts reporting more than 5 per cent positivity in the states of Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Haryana.