Mandaviya directs officials to focus on covid vaccination, genome sequencing
1 min read 23 Jun 2022, 07:28 PM ISTThe union health minister stressed on the need to focus on districts reporting high case positivity, undertake adequate testing (with higher proportion of RT-PCR) and effective covid-19 surveillance to assess and control the spread of infection in a timely manner
PremiumNEW DELHI : In the wake of rising covid cases across the country, the union health minister Dr Mansukh Mandaviya on Thursday directed the states/UTs to focus on surveillance, genome sequencing to scan for any possible mutation and monitor hospitalization of covid cases.
Mandaviya chaired a high-level meeting to review covid status across the country ordered the officials to ramp up covid testing and accelerate covid-19 vaccination for all eligible population.
Lav Agarwal, joint secretary, made a detailed presentation on the global scenario of surge in COVID cases and status of COVID in the country.
This included presentation and analysis of trend of covid-19 cases, daily & active cases, positivity and deaths; testing status along with state-wise weekly tests per million, RT-PCR share in weekly tests; genome sequencing; and vaccination status.
The union health minister stressed on the need to focus on districts reporting high case positivity, undertake adequate testing (with higher proportion of RT-PCR) and effective covid-19 surveillance to assess and control the spread of infection in a timely manner, stated the government release.
He exhorted to increase pace of vaccination including booster doses in districts reporting high cases. “As there are adequate vaccine doses available, let there be no vaccine wastage while focusing on accelerating vaccination among the eligible and vulnerable groups", he directed.
India has reported 13,313 new covid cases and 38 deaths in the last 24 hours. The country’s trajectory of total covid cases has rose to 4,33,44,958 with weekly positivity currently at 2.81% and daily positivity rate reported to be 2.03%. The total tally of active caseload has climbed to 83,990 cases.
Under the covid vaccination drive, more than 196.62 crore vaccine doses have been administered to the people across the country so far. However, the utilization of booster dose is very low. So far 4,27,36,737 booster dose have been administered against the target population of about 95 crores.
The meeting was chaired by key experts such as Rajesh Gokhale, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology; Dr Balram Bhargava, Director General, Indian Council of Medical Sciences (ICMR), Dr. N K Arora, Head of COVID Task Group, NTAGI among others.
