Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has directed officials to form a special committee to keep tabs on the Covid-19 situation after the Union health ministry asked states to take preventive measures amid reports of a spurt in novel coronavirus cases in a few countries, including China.

“I want to ask our health department to monitor the situation as China is witnessing a steep rise in Covid cases again. You (the health department) should immediately form a team of specialists who understand the subject to monitor the situation across Bengal. The team will be headed by the health secretary,” Mamata said during a meeting at Nabanna on Wednesday to discuss the preparations for Gangasagar Mela.

In his reply, health secretary Narayan Swaroop Nigam told the chief minister: “We held a meeting today and chalked out a plan to keep tabs on Covid. We are doing genome sequencing of all Covid positive samples to find whether any type of new variant of Covid is found. Although not many cases have been reported in our country, we have intensified the surveillance.”

A few hours before Mamata’s directive, the state health department conducted a meeting to discuss the present Covid situation in Bengal and precautionary measures that could be taken in the wake of the recent surge of an Omicron sub-variant of the virus in a few countries.

Union health secretary Rajesh Bhusan on Tuesday sent a communication to health departments of all states and Union territories asking officials to focus again on the five-fold strategy of test-track-treat-vaccinate and adhere to Covid appropriate behaviour.

“In view of the sudden spurt of cases being witnessed in Japan, the USA, the Republic of Korea, Brazil and China, it is essential to gear up the whole genome sequencing of positive case samples to track the variants,” the directive sent by the Union health department reads.

The Covid situation in Bengal is under control as positive cases have come down to a single digit in the past few days and it was zero on December 18.

On Wednesday, the state reported only two cases while 16,44 samples were tested.

“Although the number of Covid cases is negligible, it would not take time to take a steep rise. So, we have to be always careful,” said a senior health official in Calcutta.

Mamata’s concern came ahead of Christmas and New Year celebrations, and the Gangasagar Mela which is expected to witness a gathering of over 20 lakh people.