Centre reviews Covid-19 surge, says most cases are mild

The Centre on Saturday conducted a review of Covid-19 surge in the country and said all current active cases were mild.

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Union Health Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava held the review today with Secretary, Department of Health Research and Director-General, Indian Council of Medical Research Rajeev Bahl, Director General Health Services and Director of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

“Some Covid-19 cases have been reported mainly from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Karnataka. It may be noted that there is a robust pan-India system for surveillance of respiratory illnesses, including Covid-19, through the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) and ICMR’s pan-India respiratory virus sentinel surveillance network,” Government officials said. They said most current cases are mild and under home care.

The officials also noted increase in Covid 19 cases in Singapore, Hong Kong and other countries in the recent past and said, “It has been ascertained from the respective National IHR (International Health Regulation) focal points that there is no indication that the circulating variants are more transmissible or cause more severe disease compared to the previously circulating variants.”

The Union Health Ministry said it was vigilant and through its multiple agencies, was proactively monitoring the situation closely.

Meanwhile, data from INSACOG, the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium, a multi-laboratory, multi-agency, pan-India network established to monitor genomic variations in SARS-CoV-2, detected one case of a newly emerging Covid-19 variant NB.1.8.1 and four cases of LF.7 variant in India.

These are also the Sars-Cov2 variants that are driving Covid surge in China and parts of South East Asia.

However both the variants, in WHO classification, are Variants Under Monitoring and not Variants of Concern or Variants of Interest.

INSACOG data show a lone case of NB.1.8.1 detected in Tamil Nadu in April and four LF.7 cases found in Gujarat in May.

While these are isolated variants, the commonest Covid 19 variant in India is JN.1, which currently accounts for 53 per cent of tested samples.

BA.2 variant is making up 26 per cent cases and Omicron variants 20 per cent. As of May 20, India had logged 257 active Covid cases which are gradually rising.

Several states are conducting reviews now.