New Delhi: The centre has asked all states to step up intensive containment and active surveillance as well as better vaccination coverage amid worries over the new coronavirus strain, ‘Omicron’, which was first detected in South Africa.India has placed nations where this variant of concern has been found in the category of “at-risk” countries for additional follow-up measures of travellers coming to India.”It is imperative that intensive containment, active surveillance, increased coverage of vaccination and Covid-appropriate behaviour be enforced in a very proactive measure to effectively manage this variant of concern,” the Health Ministry said in a statement today.There is already a reporting mechanism for obtaining past travel details of passengers coming through international flights, and this should be reviewed at your level, the centre told the states.”Ample testing infrastructure need to be operationalised to tackle any surge due to this mutated virus. It has been observed that the overall testing as well as the proportion of RT-PCR tests have declined in some states. In the absence of sufficient testing, it is extremely difficult to determine the true level of infection spread,” the Health Ministry said.Continued monitoring of hotspots, or areas where recent cluster of positive cases have emerged, should be done. Saturation testing is needed at hotspots and all positive samples should be sent to designated labs for genome sequencing.
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