NEW DELHI: The government will increase the number of genome sequencing for COVID-19 in view of the new coronavirus strain that was first detected in the United Kingdom, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said on Tuesday.
“An important development is the establishment of INSACOG which is a consortium of 10 government labs to do genome sequencing of the Sars (COVID-19) virus or any variant of that virus. These labs belong to ICMR, BioTech India, CSIR and Health Ministry,” Bhushan said in a press conference here.
“In a landmark achievement, daily new COVID-19 cases are less than 17,000 after 6 months now. Daily deaths are also less than 300 after 6 months. 55 per cent deaths are found to have occured in 60 years and above age group and 70 per cent of the deaths have occurred to males,” Bhushan added.
The health secretary said that 63 per cent of total COVID cases were reported in males and 37 per cent cases in females. (AGENCY)
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