‘We need to modify covid surveillance’
1 min read 24 Mar 2023, 11:42 PM ISTThe government must modify the surveillance and testing strategies to track positive cases in the community after hospitalization and focus on testing in those particular areas in a mission mode, the public health experts added.
PremiumThere’s a need to apply ‘epidemiological intelligence’ wherever the new covid variant XBB.1.16 is found spreading in India, top epidemiologists said, following a fresh spike in covid cases.
However, they said the covid scenario is different from what it was 2-3 years ago.
Epidemiological Intelligence can be defined as the process to detect, verify, analyze, assess and investigate public health events that may represent a threat to public health. Providing early warning signals is a main objective of public health surveillance systems. It encompasses activities related to early warning functions but also signal assessments and outbreak investigation. It aims to speed up detection of potential health threats and allow timely response.
The government must modify the surveillance and testing strategies to track positive cases in the community after hospitalization and focus on testing in those particular areas in a mission mode, the public health experts added.
Omicron and its sub-lineages continue to be the predominant variant contributing to the surge in covid cases. According to the government, XBB.1.16 has been found Maharashtra (105), Telangana (93), Karnataka (57), Gujarat (54) and Delhi (19), but there’s no evidence of an increase in hospitalization or deaths.
“The need is to modify the surveillance strategy to determine from where fresh cases are coming. We need to apply intelligence epidemiological interventions and health facility-based tests must be modified to community-based testing. For example, is we are getting cases from one part of a city in the hospital then we need to scale up the testing capacity in that particular part and not the entire city," a top government epidemiologist said, requesting anonymity. Queries to the health ministry spokesperson remained unanswered.
XBB.1.16 has not spread across the country but there’s an urgent requirement is to do strategic testing and surveillance. Otherwise, there is a possibility of covid cases rising in huge numbers, he added.
