Karnataka issues guidelines for new Covid variant screening

Karnataka on Friday issued guidelines for strict screening of international passengers along similar lines of the central government circular in view of the increasing number of cases of B.1.1.529 coronavirus variant being reported in four countries so far.

State Health Secretary TK Anil Kumar in a circular stated, "Cases of Covid-19 variant B.1.1.529 in Botswana (3 cases), South Africa (6 cases) and Hong Kong (1 case), which have significantly high number of mutations, have raised serious public health implications."

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The importance of meticulous implementation and rigorous monitoring of the three-pronged surveillance strategy of screening and testing international travellers and their contacts, routine sentinel surveillance and surge surveillance, and timely sending of RT-PCR positive samples to designated INSACOG Genome Sequencing Laboratories (lGSLs) has already been reiterated in the earlier communications.

Further, Botswana, South Africa and Hong Kong are already in the list of 'at-risk' country categories of international travellers coming to India, said Kumar.

"It is therefore imperative that all international travellers travelling from and transiting through Botswana, South Africa and Hong Kong, and also including all other 'at-risk' countries should be subjected to rigorous screening and testing as per guidelines," he said.

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The contacts of these international travellers should also be closely tracked and tested as per the guidelines.

It should also be ensured that the samples of such international travellers testing positive for Covid-19 should be sent to designated IGSLs for Genome sequencing and these samples should be sequenced on priority at IGSLs.

"It is therefore strictly instructed that district administrations should adhere to the overarching 'Test-Track-Treat-Vaccinate' principle to ensure the stringent implementation of containment measures and to prevent the spread of Variants of Concern (VoC) / Variants of interest (Vol) in the interest of public health," said the state health secretary in the circular.

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