Rejoice, celebrate and party but be safe — that is the advisory from the Union ministry of health and family welfare issued to chief secretaries of all states and Union territories on December 19, considering the slight rise in Covid-19 cases in Kerala.
Union health secretary Sudhansh Pant has emphasised in the advisory the necessity to maintain constant vigil over the Covid-19 situation and reporting and monitoring district-wise influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) cases.
Sudhansh Pant writes in the advisory,
“Considering the upcoming festive season, there is need to put in place requisite public health measures and other arrangements to minimise risk of increase in transmission of the disease by adherence to maintenance of respiratory hygiene,” Pant says in the advisory.
The advisory has asked the states to maintain adequate testing in all the districts as per Covid-19 testing guidelines through RT-PCR and antigen tests.
The states are advised to carry a higher number of RT-PCR tests and send the positive samples for genome sequencing to Indian SARS COV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) laboratories to enable timely detection of any new variants in the country. The department of health has also asked the states to ensure the active participation of all public and private health facilities too in the drill being conducted by the ministry and to take stock of their preparedness and response capacities.