The health ministry on Friday asked states to review capacity enhancement of their health systems in terms of beds, oxygen facility, ventilators and drugs, and take proactive measures to utilize financial resources amid concerns over the Omicron variant of Covid-19 In a letter to state chief secretaries, Union health secretary Rajesh Bhutan urged the states to "be extra vigilant" while enforcing public health measures to contain its spread. "Current evidence, which is still evolving, suggests increased transmissibility of this variant of concern," he wrote.
Leading private hospitals are already on high alert. Fortes Healthcare is holding a meeting on Monday with all stakeholders. "We will have to put in an action plan, and that action plan will probably be similar to what we did earlier in the pandemic. Except that this time around we have better knowledge of what to do than what we did 3 months ago," Rahul Pandit, director of critical care operations at Fortes Hospitals, Mumbai told ET. He is a member of the National Covid-19 taskforce. Strengthening surveillance to detect importation of any new variant and transmission of existing virus and its variants; implementing calibrated public health and social measures and scaling up vaccination coverage, should continue to be our focus," said Poona Betrayal Singh, WHO's regional director for Southeast Asia.
India on Thursday confirmed two cases of the variant, the first few cases in WHO's South-East Asia Region. Studies are underway to evaluate Omicron's transmissibility, severity, reinfection risk, immune escape potential, clinical presentation and response to other available countermeasures. Preliminary evidence suggests higher transmissibility and potential immune escape that could lead to a surge in cases. Regardless of in severity, the increase in cases alone may pose overwhelming demand on health care systems and may lead to increased morbidity and mortality," the WHO said. Hospitals are gearing up to face the threat.
"We have just ramped up our number of ICU registrars and created additional pediatric intensive care beds as well because that is the population that is still not covered by vaccination. Along with this, we have the ability to ramp up extra beds," said Samir Singh, regional head of medical services, Mani pal Hospitals. Sandeep Budhiraja, group medical director at Max Healthcare, said its hospitals can augment inpatient beds at a short notice.Coronavirus Vaccine Registration, Coronavirus Omicron Variant Cases in India Highlights: Gujarat’s health department has confirmed one more case of Omicron variant which takes up India’s total tally of Omicron cases to three. According to news agency PTI, the infected man is a 72-year-old man and had returned to Jamnagar city of Gujarat from Zimbabwe. The Gujarat health department had on Friday informed that the man’s samples were sent for laboratory testing to identify whether he was infected with the new mutant Omicron or not. A South Africa returnee was also booked for violating home quarantine protocol, Chandigarh Health Secretary Yashmak Garb told news agency ANI on Saturday. The woman in question had returned on December 1. Although her RT-PCR report came out to be negative, she still broke home quarantine on December 2 and checked into a hotel. Keeping in view the possibility of travelers breaking protocols and checking into hotels, the local administration has directed the hotels to ask for 15-day travel history of international travelers.
Two cases of Omicron variant were reported from Karnataka on Thursday, after which a wave of panic, fear and concern was felt across states. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday issued a list of frequently asked questions about the Omicron variant. The Center had earlier also informed that given Omicron’s characteristics, it is likely to spread to more countries, including India, but given the high exposure to Delta variant and high-paced vaccination, the severity of the disease is expected to be low.
Meanwhile, India reported 8,603 new cases of Covid-19 infections on Saturday. The tally of Coronavirus cases rose
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