20 Dec 2023 • Insacog, the central government forum of labs, has found 19 sequences of BA.2.86 (nicknamed Pirola) JN.1 descendant after the subvariant was first detected in Kerala a few days ago. India's active Covid case count has more than doubled in the past 9 days.

Union Health Secretary has underlined the critical COVID control and management strategies as below:

• Considering the upcoming festive season, States were advised to put in place requisite public health measures and other arrangements to minimize risk of increase in transmission.
• States were urged to ensure effective compliance of the detailed operational guidelines for revised surveillance strategy for COVID-19 as has been shared by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
• States asked to monitor and report District-wise Influenza-like Illness (ILI) & Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) cases in all health facilities on a regular basis.
• States were advised to ensure adequate testing in all the districts as per Covid-19 testing guidelines and maintain the recommended share of RT-PCR and Antigen tests.
• States were encouraged to increase number of RT-PCR tests and send positive samples for genome sequencing to enable timely detection of new variants, if any, in the country.

Source: TOI | Read full story