vaccination in many states undergoing the present surge," said VK Paul, member (health) of Niti Aayog. In view of this, Paul urged the states to improve the testing in areas with high positivity, increase surveillance as per the revised surveillance strategy and speed up Covid vaccination.
Further, Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan directed that all districts reporting higher positivity rates need to undertake adequate testing with a higher proportion of RT-PCR tests. “Any laxity will result in deterioration of the situation in these districts," he said, adding that states should conduct surveillance as per a revised surveillance strategy issued on 9 June.
Stated were also directed to report district-wise SARI (severe acute respiratory illness) and ILI (influenza-like illness) cases on a daily basis.
These samples also need to be sent for genome sequencing to mapped INSACOG labs. It was also emphasised that states need to accelerate the administration of ongoing free Covid-19 vaccination for the first, second and precaution doses. Covid situation in country This comes as India recorded 20,557 fresh Covid-19 infections in the 24 hours ending on Wednesday morning, as per the Union health ministry data.