New Delhi: Amid rising cases of Covid-19 in China and some other countries, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya asked the states to follow the ‘test, track, treat and vaccinate’ strategy and follow Covid appropriate behaviour.
In a meeting with the state health ministers to ascertain the Covid situation, Mandaviya asked them to step up testing, boost surveillance and ensure readiness of hospital infrastructure.
Mandaviya also asked the states to be alert and said that the Centre and states have to work in a collaborative spirit as was done during the previous Covid waves.
Keeping in mind the upcoming festive season, the Health Ministry asked the states and UTs to ensure wearing masks, maintaining hand hygiene and physical distancing.
The ministry also directed the states to keep a track of influenza and flu-like symptoms for detecting early rise in Covid trends. The Union Health Minister also asked the states to send the positive samples for genome sequencing. The states have also been asked to take stock of the hospital infrastructure and logistical requirements.
The ministry also said the Covid vaccine effort has to be stepped up by creating more awareness campaigns.
MoHFW directs all States/UTs to focus on ‘Test-Track-Treat &Vaccination’ and adherence of COVID19 appropriate behaviour of wearing mask, maintaining hand hygiene and physical distancing, considering the upcoming festival season and new year celebrations pic.twitter.com/YiNrXKe6mW
— ANI (@ANI) December 23, 2022
As China and some other countries witness a surge in the number of Covid cases, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday cautioned against complacency, called for a strict vigil and directed that the ongoing surveillance measures, especially at the international airports, be strengthened.
“Covid is not over yet,” Modi reiterated at a high-level meeting to review the situation and urged people to wear masks at crowded places.
The Union health ministry has asked the civil aviation ministry to ensure random post-arrival Covid testing at airports of 2 per cent of the passengers arriving in India in each international flight from Saturday to minimise the risk of ingress of any new variant of the coronavirus in the country.
MoCA issues guidelines for random testing of international passengers
With random coronavirus testing of international arriving passengers set to start from Saturday, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has said that airlines’ crew members will have to bring such identified passengers to the testing facility at the airport.
Against the backdrop of rising coronavirus cases in China and some other parts of the world, the government has decided to subject 2 per cent of the passengers arriving on international flights to random coronavirus test starting from Saturday morning.
In a communication on Friday, the ministry said that airlines are required to direct their crew members to lead and bring identified 2 per cent of international arriving passengers to the testing facility at the airport.
“The airport operators would create necessary infrastructure to facilitate random testing of international arriving passengers at their respective airports,” the communication said.
The communication has been sent to the aviation regulator DGCA and copies have been marked to all scheduled commercial airlines, airport operators as well as to states and Union Territories (UTs), among others.