Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya chairs review meeting on India’s Covid situation

New Delhi [India], December 21 (ANI): Union Health minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Wednesday chaired a meeting with senior officials and experts to review the Covid-19 situation in India. This comes amid reports of the sudden rise in Covid cases in China, Japan, US and Brazil among other countries.

Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Bharati Pravin Pawar said the meeting has been convened to discuss the situation of Covid-19 in other countries and what needs to be done for India. The physical meeting commenced at 11:30 am on Wednesday.

“Yesterday guidelines were issued for doing genome sequencing,” Pawar told mediapersons.

Among those attending the meeting include secretaries of health, Ayush, department of pharmaceuticals and department of biotechnology, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Director General Rajiv Bahl, Member (Health) of NITI Aayog V K Paul and National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI) Chairman N L Arora, Secretary in Department of biotechnology Dr Rajesh Gokhale and MoHFW DGHS Dr Atul Goel.

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan in a letter to States and Union Territories had said that in view of the sudden spurt of cases being witnessed in Japan, USA, Korea, Brazil and China, it is essential to gear up whole genome sequencing of positive case samples to track variants through the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) network.

“All states are requested to ensure that as far as possible samples of all positive cases, on a daily basis, are sent to the designated INSACOG Genome Sequencing Laboratories (IGSLs) that are mapped to the States and UTs,” said Union Health Secretary.

Amid the rising COVID cases in China, a top Indian health expert on Tuesday cautioned the people while asking them to keep a close vigil on the situation in the country.

However, health experts said that there is nothing to panic about as the country’s system is “vigilant”.

Meanwhile, in Maharashtra today, Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis said that to monitor the Covid situation in the state, the state government will form a committee/ task force in coordination with the Centre.