With three cases of Omicron sub-variant BF.7 being detected in India including one in Odisha, the State government swung into action and decided to hold a crucial meeting on Friday to decide on necessary measures to be taken to contain the spread of the disease.
Apart from State Health Department officials, authorities of the Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC) and Institute of Life Sciences and several Medical Colleges and Hospitals will take part in the meeting.
According to sources, the Health Department is likely to come up with guidelines to cope with the health crisis caused by a sudden rise in Covid-19 cases in other countries.
Meanwhile, the Odisha Health Services Director, Bijay Mohapatra has called upon people to advise them not to panic. He said the new variant of Covid is spreading in China that does not mean that India will see a spurt in Covid cases like China.
Speaking to OTV, the Odisha Health Services Director Bijay Mohapatra said, “As China has witnessed a surge in Covid cases and one person has already been detected with the new variant, people have become scared. I would like to bring it to the notice of everyone that on September 30 that person was detected with the same variant. But the affected person was not admitted to any hospital. The fatality rate was low. We are carrying out surveillance as per the government’s guidelines. We have not found high positivity in Odisha. We are keeping a tab on it and will take necessary steps as per requirement.”
Mohapatra, however, asked people to take booster doses to help boost the immunity system. Testing, tracking, and treatment will be continued, he said.
Echoing the same, Public Health Director Niranjan Mishra is of the view that Indians have hard immunity system to fight with the new variant of Covid. Thus, people should not panic.
“Taking the last four months into consideration, we must say that there is no proof that the new variant led to a Covid surge in India in the last few months. So, there is no need to panic. But the future is always uncertain for which we always need to follow precautionary measures. We have told district collectors to gear up the disease surveillance. Besides, we would carry out genomic sequencing to see whether the new variant exists in the state,” Mishra said.