The new COVID-19 variant Omicron has now sparked a global fear regarding the third wave of the pandemic, urging the central government of India to hold a review meeting with all the states and union territories in this regard on Tuesday.
Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan held a meeting with state and UTs on November 30 as the Omicron variant continues to spread to several countries. In the meeting, Bhushan asked all the states to ramp up the COVID-19 testing for the early detection of this variant.
Bhushan underlined that the new variant doesn’t escape RT-PCR and RAT tests, and asked the authorities of the states and UTs to ensure that adequate infrastructure and supervised home isolation facilities are available.
The Omicron variant has spread to multiple countries till now, including South Africa, Botswana, and the United Kingdom. However, government officials have reassured that no case of the new Omicron variant of coronavirus has been detected in India yet.
The Ministry of Health has further asked all the states and UTs to keep their focus on intensive containment, active surveillance, enhanced testing, monitoring of hotspots, increased coverage of vaccination, and ensure augmentation of health infrastructure, keeping in mind the potential spread of the Omicron variant.
The Omicron or B.1.1.529 variant of COVID-19 has been termed as a ‘variant of concern’ by the World Health Organisation (WHO) after it was initially detected in South Africa last week. The health agency has further said that the global risk of the new variant is ‘very high’.
In order to prevent the Omicron variant from spreading in India, the Centre has also issued new international travel guidelines for foreign nationals who are travelling from countries where the new variant has been detected over the past few days.
The WHO has further said that the rate of transmissibility and the severity of the symptoms of the new COVID-19 variant are not yet clear. The Omicron variant can be detected by a standard PCR test, while the studies regarding the RAT tests are still underway.
