NEW DELHI, July 20: The Centre urged the States and Union Territories today to strictly monitor the home isolation cases of COVID-19 so that these patients do not intermingle in the community, while stressing on awareness regarding home-test kits through the rapid antigen test (RAT) for a timely identification of the disease.
The States were advised to conduct surveillance and report district-wise SARI (Severe Acute Respiratory Illness) and ILI (Influenza-like Illness) cases on a daily basis and also to send these for genome sequencing to the mapped INSACOG laboratories.
They were advised to undertake test indicated proportion of international arrivals with genome sequencing of all the positive cases and identify sentinel sites for the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) network to send samples for whole genome sequencing, according to a statement issued by the Health Ministry.
These directions were issued by Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan as he chaired a high-level meeting today to review the Covid situation in nine states — Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh.
These states are either reporting a surge in the number of fresh Covid cases or a rise in the positivity rate, the statement said.
The public health measures for surveillance, containment and management of COVID-19 were also reviewed, it stated.
Dr Vinod Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog was also present at the meeting.
Expressing concern regarding the surge in the number of cases in these States in the last one month, Paul said, “We need to be mindful that Covid is not gone. Looking at the global scenario, we need to be at high alert. There is poor surveillance, poor testing and below-average vaccination in many states undergoing the present surge.”
He urged the States to improve the testing in areas reporting a high positivity rate, increase surveillance in accordance with the revised surveillance strategy and speed up vaccination, the statement said.
Bhushan underlined the critical Covid control and management strategies. (PTI)
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