Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Monday said 28,252 cases of mucormycosis have so far been reported from 28 states/UTs in the country, of which 86 per cent cases have a history of COVID-19 and 62.3 per cent with a history of diabetes.
The Centre on Thursday advised states slated to hold assembly polls in the next few months to ramp up COVID vaccination exponentially to protect the vulnerable population given the steady rise in cases of the Omicron variant of coronavirus in India.
The CoWIN portal will be made available in Hindi and 14 regional languages by next week, while 17 more laboratories will be added to the INSACOG network to monitor the variants of COVID-19, the health ministry said on Monday.
According to officials, an additional dose of vaccine is different from a booster dose.
Experts said the strain has not propelled a surge in cases like Omicron, but advised strict adherence to COVID-19-appropriate behaviour.
Tope's comments came a day after the Centre asked the state to align its order with the SOPs issued by the Union health ministry.
Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan held a review meeting with states and Union Territories on Tuesday and advised them to ramp up testing for early identification and management of cases.
'Scientifically the effect and change of Delta plus has to be watched through our INSACOG system. This has to be detected and we have to see its presence in the country'
A group of public health experts, including doctors from All India Institute of Medical Sciences and members from the national taskforce on COVID-19, have said that mass, indiscriminate and incomplete vaccination can trigger emergence of mutant strains and recommended that there is no need to inoculate those who had documented coronavirus infection.
The reason is that because of the hybrid immunity after three waves of natural infection and a large proportion of adults receiving both doses of COVID-19 vaccine, the susceptible pool has come down drastically, Lahariya said.
The assurance comes as India's Covid graph dips -- on Friday 1,109 new coronavirus infections were reported -- and also one case of a new Covid strain in Mumbai.
After a long hiatus of more than 20 months, the government had on November 26 announced the resumption of scheduled international commercial flights from December 15.
The ministry, however, said it could not be sufficiently established yet if these variants were behind the recent spike in COVID-19 cases in some states.
Modi gave directions to officials during a high-level meeting to review the status of COVID-19 and Omicron, the new variant of concern (VOC), and said "we should be 'satark' (vigilant) and 'saavdhan' (cautious)".
In a letter to the states and union territories, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan advised implementing strategic interventions for containment like imposition of night curfew, strict regulation of large gatherings, curtailing numbers in marriages and funerals besides increasing testing and surveillance.
These include the 25 cases which were announced till Thursday. "All the 29 persons are in physical isolation in health facilities," an official said.
Alert to the looming threat from the 'Omicron' variant, states began to re-tighten curbs and urgently trace people who arrived from abroad in the last one month while a demand to not allow flights from the affected countries was made by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai.
Deaths are significantly less in the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in comparison to the second wave, and the current surge is not witnessing increase in severe illness or death following high vaccination uptake, the government said on Thursday.
Strict norms for arriving international passengers, especially from 'at-risk' countries, will come into effect from Tuesday midnight and authorities are stepping their vigil for effective surveillance amid mounting concerns over the emergence of the coronavirus variant Omicron.
Jammu and Kashmir and Odisha on Tuesday recorded their first cases of the Omicron variant of COVID as the count of the new strain in 14 states and union territories crossed 200 even as the Centre said there is a need to 'activate' war rooms, take 'pro-active' action and consider night curfews.
All these persons have been kept in single room isolation at designated health care facilities by respective state governments and their close contacts have also been put under quarantine, the ministry said.
However, experts in the fields of genome sequencing and cell science have observed that such a small sample size cannot be considered as an indication of the spread of the mutated virus.
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