Covid-19 cases surge: Centre shows red flag to states, directs them to identify hotspots, heighten booster dose coverage

At least eight Indian states are recording a sudden spike in number of Covid cases with 10 or more districts reporting over 10 per cent positivity rate from Kerala, Maharashtra and Delhi, the union health ministry said on Friday.

Also, over 5 districts are reporting more than 5 per cent positivity from Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Haryana, the government data showed. In the last 24 hours at least 6,050 new cases were recorded in India with a daily positivity rate 3.39 per cent.

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Friday reviewed the public health preparedness for containment and management of covid-19 and progress of national Covid-19 vaccination campaign considering the recent upsurge in cases in the country.   In the South-East Asia Region, India reported the highest proportional increases in cases (34, 785 versus 4,457 new cases) in the last 28 days, which means a 680 per cent rise, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) epidemiological update issued on Friday. The highest numbers of new deaths were also reported from India i.e. 106 new deaths translating into a 253 per cent rise.   Amidst swelling Covid-19 cases in the country, the central government is returning to the measures of identifying hotspots of infection that it adopted at the inception of Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. “We have asked the States to identify emerging hotspots by monitoring trends of influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) cases and sending sufficient samples for testing of covid-19 and Influenza; and ramping up whole genome sequencing of positive samples,” said Mandaviya.   With an emphasis on Covid-19 testing, the centre said that 23 states/UTs had average tests per million, which is below the national average. The minister asked the States/UTs to expeditiously increase the rate of testing from the current rate of 100 tests per million, as on the week ending April 7, 2023. Also, the states were further advised to increase the share of RT-PCR in tests.   According to the Union Health Ministry, India has been witnessing a steady increase in Covid-19 cases with average daily cases rising to 4,188 in the week ending April 7, from 571 in the week ending March 17; and weekly positivity up to 3.02 per cent in the week ending April 7. However, 88,503 daily average cases have been reported globally in the same time, with the top five countries contributing 62.6 per cent of global cases in the last one week.   Meanwhile, Dr N K Arora, Chairman of India's Covid-19 Working Group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) on Friday said that a second booster dose currently is not required and people need not to panic but continue to prevent themselves from the infection by following Covid appropriate behaviour. He also said that the central government continues to be concerned about the low coverage of the precaution or booster dose.   “India has achieved over 90 per cent coverage of primary vaccination, the coverage of precaution dose is very low. The States/UTs should ramp up vaccination of all eligible population, especially of the elderly and vulnerable population group,” minister Mandaviya noted.   Mandaviya further asked State Health Ministers to monitor and review the preparedness of all logistics and infrastructure including availability of sufficient designated hospital beds and ensure that there is adequate stock of essential medicines. States were also asked to regularly update their Covid data on the Covid India Portal.   The central government has also asked the State Health Ministers to conduct mock drills of all hospital infrastructures on Aoril 10 and 11, and review the health preparedness with district administrations and health officials on April 8 and 9.   “Irrespective of the new Covid-19 variants, the five-fold strategy of ‘Test-Track-Treat-Vaccinate and adherence to covid appropriate behavior continues to remain the tested strategy for covid management,” said the minister.   Currently the World Health Organization (WHO) is closely tracking one variant of interest (VOI), XBB.1.5 and six other variants are under monitoring (BQ.1, BA.2.75, CH.1.1, XBB, XBF and XBB.1.16).   The government said that while Omicron and its sub-lineages continue to be the predominant variant, most of the assigned variants have little or no significant transmissibility, disease severity or immune escape. The prevalence of XBB.1.16 increased from 21.6 per cent in February to 35.8 per cent in March 2023. However, no evidence of an increase in hospitalisation or mortality has been reported.   Public health experts have asked the population to mask up again with the covid cases spiking fast. “Cases are rising because virus is replicating fast and infection rate of virus is high, till now hospitalisation is less. If we don’t follow Covid appropriate behavior, we would give chance to virus to replicate more and more cases would be there.  It's high time that we start taking precautions. All age groups are affected and we are seeing cases among all,” explained Dr Kuldeep Kumar Grover, Head of critical care & Pulmonology, CK Birla Hospital, Gurgaon.