Centre issues advisory to states following surge in COVID-19 cases and detection of first case of JN.1 variant

Following the recent surge in COVID-19 cases in some States/UTs and detection of the first case of the new JN.1 variant, the Centre on Monday issued an advisory.

Highlighting the need for maintaining constant vigil over the COVID situation in the country, Union Health Secretary, Sudhansh Pant shot off a letter to States/UTs.

Pant underlined that “due to consistent and collaborative actions between Centre and State Governments, we have been able to sustain the trajectory at sustainable low rates. However, as the COVID-19 virus continues to circulate and its epidemiology behaviour gets settled with Indian weather conditions and circulation of other usual pathogens, it is important to keep the momentum going to effectively deal with the challenges in public health, reported PIB.

Critical COVID control and management strategies to be followed:

Considering the upcoming festive season, States were advised to put in place requisite public health measures and other arrangements to minimize risk of increase in transmission of the disease by adherence to maintenance of respiratory hygiene.

States asked to monitor and report District-wise Influenza-like Illness (ILI) & Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) cases in all health facilities on a regular basis including in the Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP) portal, for detecting the early rising trend of cases.

States were advised to ensure adequate testing in all the districts as per Covid-19 testing guidelines and maintain the recommended share of RT-PCR and Antigen tests.

States were encouraged to increase number of RT-PCR tests and send positive samples for genome sequencing to Indian SARS COV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) laboratories so as to enable timely detection of new variants, if any, in the country.