New Delhi: Being aware of the fact that a few States across the country have been witnessing a sharp increase in Covid cases, Union Health Minister Dr Mansukh Mandaviya on Friday asked States and Union Territories (UTs) to identify emergency hotspots, ramp up testing, vaccination and ensure the readiness of hospital infrastructure.
Chairing a review meeting with State Health Ministers on Covid, Mandaviya advised States to stay alert and keep all preparedness for Covid management. Significantly, Health Ministers of three non-BJP-ruled States, including Kerala, West Bengal and Rajasthan skipped the meeting. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is also the State Health Minister, Rajasthan Health Minister Parsadi Lal Meena and Kerala Health Minister Veena George skipped the crucial meeting.
Mandaviya during his meeting has asked State Health Ministers to review preparedness with the district administration and public health officials on April 8 and 9. States were also asked to conduct mock drills across all health facilities on April 10 and 11. State Health Ministers have also been urged to visit hospitals to review the drills.
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“The Centre and States need to continue working in a collaborative spirit as was done during the previous surges for Covid prevention and management,” said Mandaviya. He had a virtual interaction with State Health Ministers Principal Secretaries, and Additional Chief Secretaries. The virtual meeting was held in the presence of Dr Bharati Pravin Pawar, Union Minister of State for Health, to review the public health preparedness for containment and management of Covid and the progress of the national Covid vaccination drive given the recent upsurge in cases in some states.
States need to identify emerging hotspots by monitoring trends of ILI/SARI cases and sending sufficient samples for testing of Covid and Influenza and ramping up whole genome sequencing of positive samples, Mandaviya said. It was observed that 23 states and UTs had average tests per million below the national average. Dr Mandaviya said that irrespective of the new Covid variants, the five-fold strategy of ‘Test-Track-Treat-Vaccinate & Adherence to 'Covid appropriate behaviour’ continues to remain the tested strategy for Covid management.
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 April 7, 2023. They were 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 cases with average daily cases rising to 4,188 in the week ending April 7, 2023, from 571 in the week ending March 17, 2023, and weekly positivity up to 3.02 per cent in the week ending April 7, 2023.
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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 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 per cent in February to 35.8 per cent in March 2023. However, no evidence of an increase in hospitalisation or mortality has been reported. It was also informed that while India has achieved over 90% coverage of primary vaccination, the coverage of precaution dose is very low. Union Health Minister advised States/UTs to ramp up vaccination of all eligible population, especially of the elderly and vulnerable population groups.
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It was also observed that 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 five districts reporting more than five per cent positivity in the states of Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Haryana. Mandaviya stressed the importance of enhancing public awareness campaigns regarding adherence to Covid appropriate behaviour.
N Rangaswamy, Chief Minister, Puducherry, Dhan Singh Rawat, Health Minister (Uttarakhand), Keshab Mahanta, Health Minister (Assam), Vishwajit Rane, Health Minister (Goa), Banna Gupta, Health Minister (Jharkhand), Prabhuram Choudhury, Health Minister (Madhya Pradesh), Balbir Singh, Health Minister (Punjab), Dr Sapan Ranjan Singh, Health Minister (Manipur), Anil Vij, Health Minister (Haryana), Thiru Ma Subramanian, Health Minister (Tamil Nadu), Dr (Col) Dhani Ram Shandil, Health Minister (Himachal Pradesh), Vidadala Rajini, Health Minister (Andhra Pradesh), T Harish Rao, Health Minister (Telangana), Rushikesh Patel, Health Minister (Gujarat), Niranjan Pujari, Health Minister (Odisha), Alo Libang, Health Minister (Arunachal Pradesh), Tanaji Sawant, Health Minister (Maharashtra), Mazel Ampareen Lyngdoh, Health Minister (Meghalaya), Saurabh Bharadwaj, Health Minister (Delhi) and senior officials of the ministry were present in the meeting.
