Jharkhand has alerted all districts, asking officials to reinforce prescribed protocols to prevent a spike in Covid-19 cases in the wake of renewed global fears over the detection of Omicron, a new, highly transmissible variant of the Sars-Cov2 virus.

On Monday night, the state government issued an advisory, asking all 24 districts to ramp up surveillance, especially tracking and testing all international travellers who have returned to the state in the last 14 days.

After surfacing in South Africa last week, the Omicron strain has been detected in Covid positive patients in over a dozen countries so far, prompting the Centre to issue fresh guidelines for international travellers. The new guidelines will come into force nationally from December 1.

Additional chief secretary in the state health department Arun Kumar Singh, in his directive to districts, asked officials to collect samples of foreign travellers within 48 hours upon receiving a list of passengers from concerned agencies.

“All those who returned to the state from offshore countries must be tracked and samples collected within 48 hours for RT-PCR testing. All positive samples must be promptly sent to ILS Bhubaneshwar for genome testing and rigorous surveillance of past travel details of all such returnees must be reviewed and reports sent to the state headquarters,” he said.

Even though Jharkhand doesn’t have direct international flights landing at Ranchi's Birsa Munda International Airport, the health department has directed that thermal scanning be reintroduced at the terminal.

“All symptomatic passengers must be immediately isolated and taken to a medical facility as per the set protocol. If anyone tests positive, their contacts testing should be tested on priority for further safeguard,” Singh said.

Taking into account the alarming situation arising out of the second wave of infections, the state government has also asked all districts to reassess critical infrastructure such as beds, human resources, equipment, among others, in advance to avert a crisis.

The health department has conceded that due to the current decline in Covid cases, enforcement of protocols had become lax, but now these would have to be implemented seriously again. “Among all the protocols, enforcement of mandatory wearing of masks and social distancing should be reinculcated at all places on priority,” he advised.

As per health department records, so far, 69 per cent of the eligible population have received the first dose of the vaccine. Districts like Gumla, Lohardaga, Palamau, Garhwa, Latehar, Giridih, Chatra, Dhanbad, West Singhbhum, Simdega, Khunti, Deoghar, Godda, Seraikela and Sahebganj are below average in terms of vaccine coverage.

As for the second dose of the vaccine, the state has achieved about 32 per cent coverage on average. But at least 12 districts, including Godda, Dhanbad, Pakur, Bokaro, and Jamtara, are lagging behind. “Therefore, districts must ramp up vaccination simultaneously to strictly adhere to the principle of test-track-treat-vaccinate to contain the spread of the virus,” said Singh.