Covid surge: Experts urge govt to increase surveillance

With India reporting 12K-17K new Covid cases daily for the past 12 days, experts on Monday urged authorities to initiate urgent action through public health messaging and behavioural interventions while keeping a close watch on the genome surveillance to check if any new Omicron variant is fuelling the surge.

On Sunday more than 17,000 new cases were reported from all over the country. This is the second time in four days when the daily count of fresh infections crossed the 17K mark. Since June 15, the number of such cases largely remains in the range of 12K and above, everyday barring a lone exception.

“The increase in cases calls for caution. There could be variants of concern fuelling such transmissions. Public health measures such as putting on protective face masks which have largely been discarded by the citizens should be brought back,” Oommen John, a senior public health researcher at the George Institute for Global Health told DH.

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More than 40 districts including populous Delhi, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Pune, Kolkata and 11 districts in Kerala currently have a weekly positivity of more than 10 per cent while 42 districts including Bengaluru Rural have a weekly positivity rate of 5-10 per cent. Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya reviewed the surge scenario a few days ago.

“As happened elsewhere, the newer sub variants will eventually replace the earlier ones. We cannot be an exception to this. We will continue to see blips due to the rise in cases till the virus keeps evolving. Absence or increasing hospitalization is good news so far and something that we need to track carefully given lower rates of booster dose coverage,” said Giridhar Babu, an epidemiologist at the Public Health Foundation of India, Bengaluru.

Scientific studies published in the last few weeks have shown that the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 is evolving continuously with the virus being able to evade immunity. But there is no information available from the INSACOG (Indian SARS-CoV Consortium on Genomics) on whether the current surge seen in a dozen states and union territories is being fueled by new variants.

Last month INSACOG reported discovery of B4 and B5 variants from Tamil Nadu and Telangana. “Countries that have seen a recent increase in Covid numbers, are seeing enhanced BA. 4 and BA.5 infections. It is critical to augment surveillance and ensure genomic sequencing as an integral component of the public health response,” said John.