Covid-19 situation: Mansukh Mandaviya to interact with health ministers of 8 states, UTs today

New Delhi: Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya will review the Covid-19 situation and the public health preparedness to tackle the omicron spread in eight states and union territories on Friday (January 28, 2022).

Health ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, Lakshadweep, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Andaman and Nicobar Islands will participate in the video conferencing with the Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya.  

The review meeting is scheduled at 2.30 pm today and will be held through video conferencing.

Earlier, on January 24, Mandaviya had held a similar meeting with the health ministers of nine states and union territories namely- Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Ladakh, and Chandigarh.

Additionally, the Indian SARS-COV-2 Genomics Consortia INSACOG said that Omicron is in the community transmission stage in India.

It has become dominant in multiple metro cities where new cases have been rising exponentially, with BA.2 lineage, an infectious sub-variant of Omicron, found in a substantial fraction in the country, INSACOG said.

As many as 9,672 Omicron samples were found in January in genome sequencing constituting 75 per cent of the total sequenced samples of Covid-19, a huge rise from 1,292 in December, the government said on Thursday.

At a press conference, National Centre for Disease Control Director Dr S K Singh said sub-lineages of Omicron -- BA.1 and BA.2 -- were found in sequenced samples while BA.3 has not been found yet.

"We were getting more samples of BA.1 earlier mostly in travellers. But now we are seeing that BA.2 has become more prevalent in the community," Singh said. 

The Union Health Minister re-emphasised the need for ramping up testing in the States and UTs. Those States/UTs that are showing a lower share of RTPCR testing were requested to ramp up tests through RTPCR. 

States and UTs were also reminded to keep a close watch on the emerging clusters and hotspots and monitor the trend of hospitalised cases along with the deaths in the state.

Dr Mandaviya said that with our past experience, `Test-Track-Treat-Vaccinate and Adherence to Covid Appropriate Behaviour` along with monitoring of cases remains crucial for Covid management.

(With PTI inputs)