New Delhi/Kochi: The Union health ministry has asked all states to be on alert while Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya has called a meeting of state health ministers on Wednesday to review preparedness in view of the recent surge in respiratory illnesses in the country, including Covid-19.
Kerala is witnessing a rise in Covid cases as well as deaths. Daily cases detected in the state have nearly tripled in a week while 10 deaths have been reported from December 1 to 17, as per data sent by Kerala to the Centre, sources in the state health department said.
Of particular concern is JN.1, a new sub-variant of Covid-19 which was recently detected in a 79-year-old woman in Kerala. On December 16, Kerala reported 302 new Covid cases and four deaths, the highest in the latest outbreak. On December 10, Kerala had reported 109 cases.
Daily cases crossed 200 on December 12 and, within four days, Kerala reported over 300 fresh cases. The health secretary, in his letter to states, highlighted the need for maintaining constant vigil over the Covid-19 situation.
He asked them to monitor and report district-wise influenza-like illness (ILI) & severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) cases in all health facilities on a regular basis, including in the Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP) portal, for detecting the early rising trend of cases.
States have also been advised to increase the number of RT-PCR tests and send positive samples for genome sequencing to Indian SARS COV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) laboratories to enable timely detection of new variants, if any, in the country.
JN.1 (BA.2.86.1.1) is a descendant of BA.2.86 lineage (Pirola) of SARS-CoV-2 which was first identified in August and reports suggest it carried significant mutations that may contribute to increased transmissibility and immune-escape ability. JN.1 variant has also been reported in the USA, China, and Singapore.