- Saturday, April 20, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIAN prime minister Narendra Modi on Thursday (23) chaired a high-level meeting to review the Covid-19 situation in the country along with the Omicron variant and asked officials to ensure that health systems in the states are strengthened to meet any challenge posed by the new variant.
Modi passed the direction with regards to Covid-19 and Omicron after chairing a high-level review meeting on the issue. According to the prime minister’s office, he asked the officials to ensure that the health systems in the states, beginning from the district level, are made robust to meet challenges posed by the new variant of the deadly virus that has affected more than 200 people in the country.
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“It is important for states to ensure that the oxygen supply equipment are installed and fully functional,” Modi said.
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“He directed the officials to work with the states on a regular basis and review the status of preparedness of various components of health infrastructure including training and capacity building of human resources, timely availability of ambulances, readiness of states to operationalise Covid facilities for institutional quarantining, and effective and supervised monitoring of those in home isolation,” an official statement read.
The prime minister also sought sending a good number of positive samples for genome sequencing to INSACOG Labs (to study and monitor genome sequencing and virus variation of circulating strains of Covid-19 in India). He asked for accelerating the testing to ensure quick identification of cases for timely containment and treatment. The focus should also be on effective contact tracing for curbing spread of the transmission, he said.
The high-level meeting was attended by cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba, NITI Aayog member VK Paul, home secretary AK Bhalla, health secretary Rajesh Bhushan and many other top officials.
