Nationwide 2-Day Covid Mock Drill To Start Today, Health Minister Mandaviya To Visit AIIMS Jhajjar

A nationwide mock drill to assess hospital preparedness will be performed on April 10 and 11, with both public and private facilities likely to participate.

A nationwide mock drill to assess hospital preparedness will be performed on April 10 and 11, with both public and private facilities likely to participate. Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya will visit the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Jhajjar on Monday to assess the mock drill, news agency PTI reported citing officials. Mandaviya ordered state health ministers to visit hospitals and oversee mock drills at a review meeting on April 7.

He also encouraged them to conduct a readiness review with district administrations and health officials on April 8 and 9.

Mandaviya highlighted the importance of identifying emergency hotspots by monitoring trends in influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) cases, ramping up testing and vaccination, and ensuring hospital infrastructure readiness in a virtual meeting with state health ministers and principals and additional chief secretaries.

He had emphasised generating awareness about Covid-appropriate behaviour in addition to improving genome sequencing and scaling up whole genome sequencing of positive samples.

During the meeting, states and union territories were informed that the World Health Organisation (WHO) is currently closely tracking a variant of interest (VOI), XBB.1.5 and that six other variants (BQ.1, BA.2.75, CH.1.1, XBB, XBF, and XBB.1.16) are being monitored, a health ministry statement had said.

While Omicron and its sub-lineages remain the most common variants, most of the ascribed variants have little or no significant transmissibility, disease severity, or immune escape. XBB.1.16 prevalence climbed from 21.6 percent in February to 35.8 percent in March. According to the statement, no evidence of an increase in hospitalisation or mortality has been reported.

It was discovered during the meeting that 23 states and union territories had average tests per million that were lower than the national average.

Mandaviya stated that, regardless of the new varieties, the five-step technique of 'Test-Track-Treat-Vaccinate and Adherence to Covid-Appropriate Behavior' remains the tried and true strategy for Covid management.

States and union territories were also asked to rapidly raise testing rates from 100 tests per million in the week ending April 7. They were also instructed to enhance the proportion of RT-PCR in tests.