Bhubaneswar: Taking a serious note of the sudden spurt of Covid 19 cases in China, Japan, USA, Korea and Brazil, Odisha government today issued alert to all district administrations and concerned officials to step up surveillance and genome sequencing.
Health and Family Welfare Department secretary Salini Pandit today wrote a letter to all district Collectors, CDMOs, medical Colleges and other health officials asking them to gear up the disease surveillance and WGS (Whole Genome sequencing) of positive case samples to track the variant.
“In view of sudden of spurt of cases in foreign countries, it is essential to gear up the disease surveillance and WGS of positive case samples to track the variant through Indian SARS CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) network,” she said in the letter.
Further testing, tracking, treating, contact tracing, vaccination and COVID-19 appropriate behaviour needs to be flowed scrupulously to enable timely detection of newer variant and facilitate for immediate containment measures,” she added in the letter.