Two cases of the new Omicron variant of coronavirus have been detected in Karnataka, the Union government said on Thursday while asking people not to panic but follow Covid-appropriate behaviour and get vaccinated without delay.
Currently, the country is using two 'made-in India' jabs -- Covishield and Covaxin -- to inoculate its billion-plus population and has administered 20 crore doses since launching the world's largest vaccination drive in mid-January. A third vaccine, Russian-made Sputnik V, has been approved by the government and is being used on a smaller scale at present.
Sources said several Tablighi Jamaat members at different quarantine centres have also volunteered to donate their plasma for the recovery of COVID-19 patients. A Delhi government official said the process of taking plasma from the Tablighi Jamaat members has started.
According to the latest data available from the Centre and the states in the night, the total number of Omicron cases in the country was around 1,200.
Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Health Lav Agarwal said that India has a stock of 3.28 crore tablets of hydroxychloroquine, which is three time more than the projected requirement of one crore tablets in the country for the coming week and that tie-ups have been made for additional supply of 2 to 3 crore tablets for the future need.
71 districts reported Covid case positivity rate of more than 10 per cent in the week from June 23 to 29, the government said, adding that the second wave of COVID-19 is not over.
The government also said the coronavirus tracking app Aarogya Setu is secure as it has been designed keeping in mind the privacy of people and is playing a crucial role in India's fight against COVID-19.
In a press briefing, officials said the virus outbreak is under control in the country and credited a robust surveillance network along with implementation of the lockdown and other containment measures for it.
Addressing a press briefing, Health Ministry's Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said the government has taken early preemptive action to identify COVID-19 hotspots in the country.
The Reproduction number or Rt refers to how many people an infected person infects on average. In other words, it can tell how efficiently a virus is spreading.
The ministry also said about 14 most affected countries with a cumulative population almost equal to that of India have reported 55.2 times more COVID-19 deaths and 22.5 times more cases.
Joint Secretary in the health ministry Lav Agarwal said it is wrong to just look at the total number of cases and state that India has the seventh highest number of cases as the population of countries also should be taken into account. About 14 countries with a cumulative population almost equal to that of India have reported 55.2 times more COVID-19 deaths, he said.
The official said in general, there are various types of fungal infections such as candida, aspergillosis, cryptococcus, histoplasmosis and coccidioidomycosis. Mucormycosis, candida and aspergillosis are the ones observed more in those with low immunity, he said.
From 3.38 per cent in April, the fatality rate in the country has come down to 2.87 per cent as against 6.4 per cent globally.
As the SARS-CoV2 evolves and mutates further, it is necessary to be prepared for new waves, Principal Scientific Adviser K VijayRaghavan cautioned on Wednesday, even as he said ferocity of the second wave of coronavirus in the country was not predicted.
According to the health ministry data, Delhi has reported the highest number of confirmed cases at 503.
The Indian Council of Medical Research will start national-level sero surveys to assess the spread of Covid-19 and all states/Union territories should also be encouraged to conduct them so that information from all geographies can be collected, the Union health ministry said on Friday.
"Rigorous contact tracing is on across the 17 states which have reported cases related to Tablighi Jamaat congregation," the health ministry official said.
The government said it had been evaluating the implementation of the decentralised model of vaccination since its launch on May 1 and that the decision to centralise it again was taken after detailed deliberations and following requests by some states, amid claims by the Opposition that the policy change was due to the Supreme Court's intervention.
Joint secretary in the ministry Lav Agarwal said 149 new COVID-19 cases, including two deaths, have been reported since Friday. Combined efforts are on to ensure 100 per cent lockdown and that social distancing gets implemented, he said at a press briefing on the current COVID-19 situation in India.
At the same, it said the latest figures do not establish a clear trend and in no way the government is relaxed about anything at this point.
A steady decline in new COVID-19 cases has been recorded in India for the last 20 days, with 24 states witnessing a dip in active cases since the last week, the Union health ministry said.
Addressing a press conference, NITI Aayog Member (Health) Dr V K Paul said the question of the third wave keeps coming up because the population is still 'very vulnerable' to the infection.
"Despite the high number of cases reported so far, we have been able to contain the spread to under 2 pc of population," said Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal.
Eleven states -- Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Bihar -- cumulatively account for 78.18 per cent of the active cases in the country, according to the health ministry.
'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 total 179 deaths deaths have been reported since Monday evening, of which 98 were from West Bengal, 35 from Maharashtra, 29 from Gujarat, six from Rajasthan, five from Uttar Pradesh, two from Punjab and one each from Chandigarh, Haryana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
Joint Secretary in the health ministry Lav Agarwal said 154 new positive cases of the disease have been reported due to the transit-related history of those who attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation. These include 23 new cases from Jammu and Kashmir, 20 from Telengana, 18 from Delhi, 65 from Tamil Nadu, 17 from Andhra Pradesh, nine from Andaman and Nicobar Islands and two from Puducherry.
"Lockdown and containment (measures) have been successful in keeping it low and preventing rapid spread," ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava said, citing the sero-survey on COVID-19 spread.
As cases of 'black fungus' among COVID-19 patients in the country rise to cross 7,000, the Centre on Thursday urged all states and union territories to declare it as a notifiable disease under the Epidemic Diseases Act to ensure mandatory surveillance to tackle the 'new challenge'.
'We have the technical expertise, and international collaborations. We also have robust real-time data. We are a university of pandemic management. If the ministry neglects the role of NCDC, it is the loss of the country'
Agarwal said that the current 'R0' or R naught for the coronavirus infection is somewhere between 1.5 and 4.
Addressing the daily press briefing on the actions taken, preparedness and updates on COVID-19, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Health Lav Agarwal said 92 new cases and four deaths due to coronavirus have been reported in India since Sunday, taking total cases to 1,071 and the number of deaths to 29.
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Out of the 12 deaths reported in the last 24 hours some are related to the Tablighi Jamaat congregation, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said in a daily media briefing.
Over 2,000 delegates, including from Indonesia and Malaysia, attended the Tabligh-e-Jamaat congregation in Nizamuddin West from March 1-15, officials said as the south Delhi neighbourhood was virtually sealed following fears that some people may have contracted COVID-19.
With these states imposing lockdowns anew, the health ministry emphasised that the restrictions should be utilised to focus on containment, surveillance and testing in the containment and buffer zones as the key strategy for early detection of cases and fatality management.
However, two districts -- Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar in Punjab -- which did not record a fresh case in the last 28 days, reported new COVID-19 cases on Monday, it added.
The joint secretary also said a high-level task force to work on frontiers of science related to vaccines and drug testing was formed on Sunday.
Talking about the Tablighi Jamaat congregation, Agarwal said, "If the Tablighi Jamaat incident had not taken place and we compare the rate of doubling -- that is in how many days the cases have doubled, we will see that currently it is 4.1 days (including Jamaat cases) and if the incident had not taken place and additional cases had not come then the doubling rate would have been 7.4 days."
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