Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya will be holding a meeting with senior officials today to review the Covid-19 situation in India and other countries. The meeting comes amid a rising number of Covid cases in China, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, and also the US.
According to a PTI report, the meeting will be attended by the secretaries of health, Ayush, department of pharmaceuticals and department of biotechnology, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Director General Rajiv Bahl, Member (Health) of NITI Aayog V K Paul and National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI) Chairman N L Arora and other senior officials.
MoS Health Dr B Pawar told ANI, “Today we’re holding a meeting under the chairmanship of Union Health Min Dr Mansukh Mandaviya. We’ll review as to what’s the situation of Covid in other countries and what needs to be done for India. Yesterday guidelines were issued for doing genome sequencing.”
Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan had written a letter on Tuesday to the state governments asking them to gear up the sequencing mechanism for tracking and isolating new variants in the country. This exercise is extremely important as it will enable the timely detection of newer variants.
Bhushan highlighted that India with its five-fold strategy of test-track-treat-vaccination has been able to curb the transmission of Coronavirus, reported PTI. India is currently recording around 1,200 cases in a week.
