India has started randomly testing 2% of international travelers arriving in the country for Covid-19 and may consider making it mandatory for all if necessary, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya told Parliament on Thursday as several countries, notably China, reported increases. cases. The ministers’ remarks came amid a series of high-level meetings on the rise in cases reported in other parts of the world, although experts and officials said India had little to worry about at the moment as it had a high baseline immunity.
Mandaviya ruled out any flight restrictions. “There are no direct flights from China to India and we are taking all possible precautions that we have learned in the last two years to manage the spread of the infection in the country. We are already randomly testing 2% samples for Covid from international passengers on arrival and if required, we can increase it further in future and we can also make testing mandatory for all arriving passengers,” he said in the Rajya Sabha.
The testing is focused on monitoring the variants that are imported into the country. “We have to keep both things in mind that unknown viruses should not enter our country and also there are no barriers to travel,” he added. India dropped mandatory testing for international arrivals on 14 February after a steady decline in cases at the time, and on 21 November scrapped mandatory declaration of Covid-19 status or vaccine through the Air Suvidha portal where people are heading. He will have to visit India before they leave.
Later on Thursday, officials released a letter sent by Union Health Minister Rajesh Bhushan to Civil Aviation Minister Rajiv Bansal, in which he said decisions had been taken for airports to conduct random tests for Covid on 2% of international arrivals to allow airlines to determine which passengers have and for local and national disease surveillance officials to be notified of the samples collected. Passengers who give their samples can leave the airport and the results will be forwarded to the Integrated Disease Surveillance Program (IDSP) offices of the Center and states, the paper said, adding that the positive samples should be forwarded to the genome sequencing network. Insacog laboratories for further analysis.
In the past week, India has reported an average of just over 150 cases a day, the lowest number since the start of the pandemic. Ahead of the festive season, the health minister said, states must focus on ensuring effective awareness in communities to observe Covid-appropriate behaviour, which includes wearing masks and maintaining social distancing. India will continue to focus on the strategic principles of “Test-Track-Treat-Vaccination and Adherence to Appropriate Covid Behavior” to manage the virus, he said.
Regarding the country’s preparedness to deal with the new surge in cases, Mandaviya said the health ministry had conducted an extensive review and found sufficient drug stocks and production capacity. “We are not only ready to handle our demands, but we are also able to help deal with the global medical crisis,” he said. “When the crisis happened last time, I received instructions from the Prime Minister that we had to help other countries as well, and we delivered medicine to 150 countries in need and not at exorbitant prices. Neither country complained about fake drugs; it was all of good quality,” he added.
The Minister assured the House that India is in an adequate position in terms of supply of oxygen and medicines. “We have sufficient oxygen supplies in the country and all major hospitals now have a PSA (pressure swing absorbance) oxygen plant. I personally check the functioning of these plants every 15 days because I know they require a lot of maintenance. In fact, I was told that the PSA plant is expensive to maintain and demand has been low for some time, so I suggested that its operation be outsourced to some third party under a public private partnership model to put it to constructive use,” he said.
India has shown a continuous downward trajectory of cases in the past year, the health minister said. “Currently, an average of 153 new cases are reported daily across the country, but globally, an average of around 5.87 lakh new cases are still reported daily,” he said.
“Through the joint efforts of the Union Government and all the States, we have administered a record number of 220.02 million (2200.2 million) doses of Covid-19 vaccines across the country. This covered 90% of the eligible population with two doses, including the administration of 22.35 million (223.5 million) preventive doses,” he added. Mandaviya said the health department is also monitoring the situation in the country and the global situation, “I would like to inform the House that the Ministry of Health regularly monitors the situation and has proposed the following specific interventions to manage the ongoing challenge. States are advised to focus on increased surveillance within the community and take necessary control and containment measures,” he said.
“States have also been advised to increase whole-genome sequencing of all positive cases for early detection of newer variants, if any, circulating in the country and to facilitate implementation of required public health measures,” he added. States should ensure that the coverage of preventive doses for vaccination against Covid-19 should be increased and awareness should be raised in the community, he said.
