New Delhi: Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandviya held a high-level meeting on Wednesday to review the Covid situation in India. In at least five countries, Covid-19 cases have increased dramatically, triggering fears among other nations.  This comes amid reports of the quick rise in Covid cases in China, Japan, United States and Brazil among other countries.

Minister of State for Health & Family Welfare Bharati Pravin Pawar said the meeting has been hold to mull over the situation of Covid-19 in other countries and what needs to be done for India.

The physical meeting began at 11:30 am on Wednesday. On Tuesday,  guidelines were issued for doing genome sequencing," Pawar told mediapersons.

The National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI) Chairman N L Arora, the Secretaries of Health, Ayush, the Department of Pharmaceuticals, and the Department of Biotechnology, as well as Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Rajiv Bahl, Member of the NITI Aayog (Health), V K Paul, and Secretary in the Department of Biotechnology, Dr. Rajesh Gokhale,  were among those attending the meeting.

In a letter to States and Union Territories, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said that it is imperative to set up whole genome sequencing of positive case samples in order to track variants through the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) network in light of the sudden spike in cases being observed in Japan, the USA, Korea, Brazil, and China.

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