Mansukh Mandaviya to hold COVID review meet with State Health Ministers on Jan 10: Sources

In a key development, sources informed that Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya will convene a meeting with Health Ministers of States and Union Territories on Monday. Earlier on Sunday, Health Minister Mandaviya held discussions with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah on the COVID situation, and preparedness of health systems across the country.

This comes amid an alarming surge in COVID cases in the country and growing concern over the Omicron variant of the virus. India in the last 24 hours logged a single-day surge of 1,59,632 new COVID cases, pushing the tally to 3.55 crore, which included 3,623 cases of the Omicron variant. With the fresh additions, the active cases increased to 5,90,611 across 27 states and the Union territories so far. The active cases comprise 1.66% of the total infections. The daily positivity rate is at 10.24%.

Notably, a high positivity rate is considered one of the first signs of an impending wave of infections. With daily multiplying cases, experts have already warned that India is likely to witness the third wave of infections soon.

Meanwhile, the government has announced the commencement of drive for 'precautionary' doses of vaccines. Starting January 10, the precautionary vaccine dose will be given to healthcare workers, frontline workers and individuals aged 60 years and above with comorbidities. There is no need for fresh registration, those eligible can directly take an appointment or walk in to any vaccination centre.

What happened in the previous meeting?

Mansukh Mandaviya had previously called for a meeting with Health Ministers of States and Union Territories on January 3. In the meeting, while stressing strict compliance to COVID appropriate behaviour, Mandaviya had underlined that Test, Track, Treat, and Vaccination is the primary Mantra for the collective fight against the pandemic.

The critical bottlenecks of the Medical infrastructure were discussed, and the Health Ministers of the States and Union Territories were advised by the Union Health Minister to better utilize the funds allocated under Phase-II of the Emergency COVID19 Response Package (ECRP).

"We have put up a strong fight against COVID earlier and this learning must be used to re-focus on efforts against Omicron variant, ” Mansukh Mandaviya had said in the meeting.