Given the increased cases of Covid-19 in Asia and Europe including China, the Union Health Minister, Hasmukh Mandaviya on Wednesday chaired a high-level meeting with the officials of the Central Health Ministry and asked them to be alert.
The officials at the meet were directed to be in strict compliance with three aspects – a high level of alertness on the case rise, intensified surveillance of infection and aggressive genome sequencing in the country, the health ministry officials informed.
The central decisions such as resuming international flights from March 27, the level of genome sequencing and the level of genome sequencing along with vaccination status in the country were reviewed at this meeting, attended by top doctors, health secretary, NCDC Chief, DCGI, AIIMS Chief and the chairman of Covid-19 working group of NTAGI.
Since the pandemic began in 2019, China on Tuesday recorded a biggest outbreak so far with 5,280 fresh Covid-19 cases. Chinese cities like Beijing and Shenzhen are under lockdown due to a spike in the cases.
The surge is being driven by the Omicron BA.2 ‘stealth’ subvariant, which is the most infectious lineage of the SARS-Cov-2 virus so far, according to the Chinese health authorities.
Apart from China, Western Europe, US, Germany and South Korea are among the countries which are reporting a spike in daily Covid-19 cases.
