Dr PK Mishra, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, presided over a high-level meeting with top officials and experts to assess Covid status and compliance with earlier PM directives to ensure Covid preparation and effective management, news agency ANI reported on Saturday.
During the Covid-19 high-level review meeting, it was announced that about 500 samples collected in December 2022 are presently being genome sequenced by INSACOG Labs across the country.
It is expected that INSACOG would issue another bulletin next week with information on the sorts of variants found in India.
In November, INSACOG released a bulletin stating that XBB BJ.1/BM.1.1.1 had been discovered in numerous Indian states "BB, a BJ 1/ BM.1.1.1 recombinant lineage with a breakpoint in the spike protein, is now being seen in a number of nations. This recombinant lineage was discovered in Singapore and the United States, and it has since been recognised in other Indian states. A sub-lineage of XBB with an extra mutation (XBB.1) has also been identified."
According to the latest guidelines, international passengers travelling to India from China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Thailand will be required to undergo mandatory RT-PCR tests before departure and upload a report to the Air Suvidha portal beginning January 1, 2023, according to the Union Health Ministry.
INSACOG is a body established by the Government of India on 30 December 2020 under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to study and monitor genome sequencing and virus variation of circulating strains of COVID-19 in India.
(With Inputs From ANI)