A high-level meeting was chaired on Monday by the Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary to review the situation of COVID-19 on global and national level along with their newer variants that are in circulation and their impact on public health, according to ANI.
This was in light of recent reports indicating the discovery of a few additional SARS-CoV-2 virus strains that had been found worldwide. According to ANI, NITI Aayog member Vinod Paul, Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, PMO Advisor Amit Khare, Secretary of Department of Health Research and Indian Council of Medical Research Director General Rajiv Bahl, Health and Family Welfare Secretary Sudhansh Pant, Additional Secretary to Prime Minister Punya Salila Srivastava and Biotechnology Secretary Rajesh S. Gokhale attended the meeting.
It was underlined by the Health Secretary that as per WHO, the variant BA.2.86 has been reported in four countries while the EG.5 has been reported from over 50 countries.
A total of 2,96,219 new cases have been reported globally in the past seven days. India contributes nearly 17 per cent of the world population and has reported 223 cases in the past week which is around 0.075 per cent of the new global cases.
It was also reported that the daily average of new COVID-19 cases are below 50 from the entire country and it has maintained a positivity rate of less than 0.2 per cent on a weekly basis.
Following thorough discussion, PK Mishra emphasized that while the COVID-19 situation in the nation is stable and the public health systems in the nation are still prepared, it is important for States to keep an eye on trends in influenza-like illness or cases of severe acute respiratory infections, send enough samples for Covid-19 testing while stepping up Whole Genome Sequencing, and keep a close eye on the new global variants.
