States to undertake mock drill to ensure operational readiness of Covid-dedicated facilities

The Centre on Friday asked the states to carry out “dry runs” across hospitals on Dec 27 to check their Covid preparedness besides rolling out an intranasal vaccine as a precautionary third dose amidst reports suggesting one to two million Covid deaths in China within the next few months due to a new SARS-CoV-2 variant that is spreading like a wildfire.

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya reviewed the Covid situations with state ministers in a meeting where he asked the states to ramp up testing and encourage uptake of the precautionary third dose of the vaccine. Among the 60 plus population only 40 per cent have taken the third shot and the number drops to 22 per cent among the 18-59 years age group.

So far 97 per cent of the eligible Indians (above 12 years of age) have taken the first dose of the vaccine (102.55 crore doses) and 90 per cent taken both the shots (90.12 crore doses). But only 22.35 crore precaution doses have been administered so far demonstrating only 27 per cent of the population has cared to take the third shot even though the experts have advised it for better protection.

Read | Avoid overcrowding, ensure wearing of masks: Centre to states ahead of festive season

At the review meeting, Mandaviya asked the state health ministers to ramp up vaccination of the eligible population, especially of the elderly and the vulnerable group. The states have also been asked to create awareness among people to wear the mask and avoid crowded places during the upcoming festival season.

As an additional booster option, the ministry allowed administration of the needle-free intranasal vaccine that would be available at the private hospitals.

Developed by Bharat Biotech in partnership with Washington University, St Louis, it was approved by the Drugs Controller General of India in November for restricted use in an emergency situation for those above 18 years as a heterologous booster dose. The adults who have taken two doses of Covishield and Covaxin can take this shot. The CoWin platform would be modified shortly to include the new vaccine.

The vaccine (BBV154) has the double benefit of enabling faster development of variant-specific vaccines and easy nasal delivery that may help in mass immunisation to protect the population from emerging variants of concern.

The states have also been asked to expeditiously increase the rate of testing from the current rate of 79 tests per million. Furthermore, they were told to strengthen the surveillance system for whole genome sequencing of positive case samples to track new variants.

India ups its surveillance and Covid-19 preparedness at a time when there are multiple reports on how the BF-7 variant of the virus is ripping through Beijing and other major cities, even though there is little official information from the Chinese government.

“The WHO is very concerned over the evolving situation in China, with increasing reports of severe disease. We continue to call on China to share the data and conduct the studies we have requested, and which we continue to request,” the UN agency’s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.