Most Covid cases mild, but closely monitoring surge: Health Ministry

The Centre on Saturday conducted a review of the surge in Covid-19 cases in the country and said all active cases were mild. Union Health Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava held the review with Secretary, Department of Health Research and Director General, Indian Council of Medical Research, Rajeev Bahl, Director General Health Services and Director of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

“Covid-19 cases have been reported mainly from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Karnataka. It may be noted that there is a robust pan India system for surveillance of respiratory illnesses, including Covid-19 through the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) and ICMR’s pan India respiratory virus sentinel surveillance network,” government officials said.

They said most current cases were mild and patients were under home care. The officials also noted the increase in Covid-19 cases in Singapore, Hong Kong and other countries in the recent past.

“It has been ascertained from the respective National IHR (International Health Regulation) focal points that there is no indication that the circulating variants are more transmissible or cause more severe disease compared to the previously circulating variants,” one of the officials said.

The Health Ministry said it was vigilant and proactively monitoring the situation through its multiple agencies.

Meanwhile, data from INSACOG, the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium, detected one case of a newly emerging COVID-19 variant NB.1.8.1 and four cases of LF.7 variant in India. These are also the variants that are driving Covid surge in China and parts of South East Asia. But, according to the WHO’s classification, both variants are ‘Variants Under Monitoring’ and not ‘Variants of Concern’ or ‘Variants of Interest’.

As of May 20, India had logged 257 active Covid cases, which are gradually rising. Several states are also conducting reviews of the situation. The most common variant in India is JN.1, which currently accounts for 53% of tested samples. BA.2 variant is making up 26% cases and Omicron variants 20%.

India