Tag: National Centre for Disease Control

  • Uttarakhand: Three cases of Delta Plus AY 2 variant of coronavirus reported in Nainital

    By ANI

    NAINITAL: Three cases of Delta Plus AY 2 variant of coronavirus was confirmed in Nainital district on Monday.

    Out of the 15 samples sent to the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in July for confirmation of the Delta Plus variant, three confirmed the presence of Delta Plus sub-variant AY 2. However, the Delta Plus variant is not found in any, said district health officials.

    Samples of relatives of patients who came positive and those who came in contact were also taken, but the reports of all were negative.

    Chief Medical Officer Dr Bhagirathi Joshi said the Delta Plus variant was not confirmed in any of the patients. The three patients in whom AY 2 variant was confirmed had mild symptoms of COVID. The patients have now completely recovered. Samples of all three people will be sent again for examination. The samples of MBBS students of the Government Medical College, Haldwani will also be sent to NCDC for examination of variants.

    Nursing classes have also been postponed for two days after 19 MBBS students in the medical college reported COVID positive. COVID tests will also be done on nursing students.

    The Uttarakhand government on Monday announced the extension of the ongoing COVID-induced curfew in the state till September 7. The restrictions have been extended in view of the COVID situation.

    For entry from other states, a certificate of two doses of COVID vaccine has to be produced. In the absence of this certificate, entry will be allowed only on an RTPCR negative report of not more than 72 hours old.

  • COVID-19 showed need to create awareness on zonotic diseases: Union minister Mansukh Mandaviya

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need of creating vigilance and awareness on zoonotic diseases, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Friday said.

    He made the remarks while virtually inaugurating the Whole Genome Sequencing National Reference Laboratory for Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and BSL 3 Laboratory on the 112th Annual Day of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

    Congratulating NCDC for its contributions, Mandaviya said that India has performed better than many other countries in fighting the pandemic, a Health ministry statement stated.

    He said that new dimensions have been added today in the legacy of 112 years of achievements of NCDC and encouraged it to strive for further innovations so that not only India but the whole world can benefit from its work.

    Scientists, doctors, officers and staff of NCDC should collectively chart out goals they want to achieve in the coming years, he said.

    “The recent COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need of creating vigilance and awareness on zoonotic diseases,” he said, adding that division of Zoonotic Disease Programme at NCDC under the “National One health Programme for prevention and Control of Zoonoses” has created IEC materials on seven priority zoonotic diseases namely Rabies, Scrub Typhus, Brucellosis, Anthrax, CCHF, Nipah and Kyasanur Forest Disease in India.

    Zonotic diseases pass from animal or insect to humans.

    The minister also launched the National Health Adaptation Plan on Air Pollution and National Health Adaptation Plan on Heat along with infographics and the first newsletter under the “National Programme on Climate Change and Human Health” developed by Centre of Environmental and Occupational Health, Climate Change and Health at NCDC.

    Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar said NCDC provides a gamut of services to the people through its laboratories, and strengths in epidemiology, public health capacity building, entomology, etc, the statement said.

    NCDC’s role in steering the AMR containment programme in the country is commendable. “NCDC can act as a focal point with greater authority and resources for disease surveillance, monitoring of health status, educating the public, providing evidence for public health action and enforcing public health regulations,” Pawar said.

    She also stressed the importance of public awareness and people’s participation in keeping lifestyle diseases at bay.

  • COVID: UK variant dominates North India, double mutant wrecking havoc in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: The UK strain of coronavirus is currently dominating parts of north India while double mutant could be found mostly in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Gujarat, Sujeet Singh, Director of National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), has said.

    He, however, added that the B1.1.7 lineage of SARS CoV-2 (UK variant) is declining in proportion across the country in the last month and a half.

    Addressing a press briefing on Wednesday, Singh said the UK strain is dominating parts of north India including Punjab (482 samples) and Delhi (516), followed by Telangana (192), Maharashtra (83) and Karnataka (82).

    He said 10 top government laboratories and institutions have been sequencing the genomes of coronavirus since December.

    A total of 18,053 samples have been sequenced so far, he added.

    Singh said the information on genome sequencing has been shared with the states twice in February, four times in March and again four times in April.

    He said in the video-conferencing with states, the Health Ministry also informed about the current status of variants of concern and new mutants and stressed on increased and stringent public health interventions.

    The double mutant variant, also known as B.1.617, is mostly dominating Maharashtra (761), West Bengal (124), Delhi (107) and Gujarat (102), Singh said.

    The South African variant, also known as B.1.315, was predominantly found in Telangana and Delhi.

    Brazilian variant (P1) was only found in Maharashtra in a negligible proportion, he said.

    Singh said there is a frequent written communication on the variants by the Health Ministry and the NCDC to all states and UTs.

    He said states/UTs are advised to keep strict surveillance in the districts reporting new variants of concern where they can take up stringent public health measures including contact tracing, genome sequencing of positive samples of persons having history of international travel.

    Meanwhile, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi are among 10 states that account for 72.19 per cent of the new COVID-19 cases reported in a day, the Union Health Ministry said on Thursday.

    New coronavirus cases and deaths in India hit a record daily high with 4,12,262 new infections and 3,980 fatalities being reported, taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 2,10,77,410 and the death toll to 2,30,168.

    The ministry said that Karnataka,Kerala, Haryana, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan are among the other states in the list of 10.

    Maharashtra has reported the highest daily new cases at 57,640.

    It is followed by Karnataka with 50,112 while Kerala reported 41,953 new cases.

    Besides Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Jhakhand account for 75.55 per cent of the new deaths.

    Maharashtra saw the maximum casualties (920).

    Uttar Pradesh follows with 353 daily deaths.

    “The National Mortality Rate has been falling and currently stands at 1.09 per cent,” the ministry said.

    India’s total active caseload has reached 35,66,398 and now comprises 16.92 per cent of the country’s total infections.

    A net incline of 79,169 cases recorded from the total active caseload in a span of  24 hours.

    Twelve states cumulatively account for 81.05 per cent of India’s total active cases, the ministry said.

    The cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country has crossed 16.25 crore.

    The ministry said 9,04,263 beneficiaries in the age group of 18-44 years received their first dose of COVID vaccine across 12 states and UTs.

    These states are Chhattisgarh (1,026), Delhi (1,29,096), Gujarat (1,96,860), Jammu and Kashmir (16,387), Haryana (1,23,484), Karnataka (5,328), Maharashtra (1,53,966), Odisha (21,031), Punjab (1,535), Rajasthan (1,80,242), Tamil Nadu (6,415) and UP (68,893).

    Cumulatively, 16,25,13,339 vaccine doses have been administered through 29,34,844 sessions, as per the provisional report till 7 am.

    These include 94,80,739 HCWs who have taken the first dose and 63,54,113 HCWs who have taken the second dose, 1,36,57,922 FLWs who have received the first dose and 74,25,592 FLWs who have taken the second dose and, 9,04,263 beneficiaries aged 18-44 who have taken the first dose.

    Besides, 5,31,16,901 and 1,29,15,354 beneficiaries more than 60 years old have been administered the first and second dose respectively while 5,38,15,026 and 48,43,429 beneficiaries aged 45 to 60 have taken the first and second dose.

    Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh account for 66.87 per cent of the cumulative doses given so far in the country, the ministry said.

    More than 19 lakh vaccination doses were administered in a span of 24 hours.

    As on Day-110 of the vaccination drive (May 5), 19,55,733 vaccine doses were given.

    Across 15,903 sessions, 8,99,163 beneficiaries were vaccinated for the first dose and 10,56,570 beneficiaries received their second dose of vaccine.

    India’s cumulative recoveries stand at 1,72,80,844 with 3,29,113 recoveries being registered in a day.

    Ten states account for 74.71 per cent of the new recoveries.

  • Amid Maharashtra’s worsening COVID-19 situation, virus variant with double mutation detected in state

    Express News Service
    NEW DELHI:  Scientific institutes tasked with genome sequencing of the Covid-19 virus in the country have alerted the Centre on a virus variant with double mutation in Maharashtra, whose possible role in the surge in cases is being probed, this newspaper has gathered.

    The institutes working on a project under the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) have alerted the Union health ministry to label the variant with the double mutation as a likely variant of concern (VOC).

    VOCs have potential public health implications like the ones in the UK, Brazil and South Africa.

    Sources working on the project said so far 7,000 virus samples have been sequenced, of which 200 were lifted from parts of Maharashtra, which has been hit the hardest with the fresh rise in cases.

    “Of the samples from Maharashtra, about 20% have two mutations, E484Q and L452R,” said a source.

    “While it is difficult to conclusively say that the variant is behind the surge, it has been established elsewhere that E484Q can escape antibody neutralisation and L452R is known to increase infectivity and has been linked to large pockets in the US.”

    The Centre in December had formed a genomic surveillance consortium INSACOG of 10 institutes under the NCDC to work on genome sequencing of virus samples from various parts of the country amid concern over detection of the UK variant in India.

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    A team sent by the health ministry to Maharashtra had also pointed to a possible role of the variant virus causing the second wave of infections in the state.

    Officials said an epidemiological investigation being undertaken by the NCDC, will involve probing whether variants are causing the disease to spread in clusters and whether they are more infectious.

    Epidemiologists will also examine whether there is significant digression in clinical outcomes in patients, found positive with the variant and whether people with previous history of infection are also being found re-infected with the mutant virus.

    The government has earlier categorically denied the role of the virus with E484Q or any other mutation in the surge, but this mutation appearing with L452R in a region with a massive surge of infections has triggered fresh worries.

    Maharashtra is in the beginning of second COVID-19 wave, a central team report has said, highlighting that there is very limited active effort to track, test, isolate cases and quarantine contacts, and there is no adherence to COVID appropriate behaviour among people in rural and urban areas.

    Based on the central team report, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan has written a letter to the Maharashtra government, stating “measures such as night curfews, weekend lockdowns etc. have very limited impact on containing/suppressing the transmission” and urged the state to focus on strict containment strategies, strengthening surveillance and augmenting testing.

    In a letter to Maharashtra Chief Secretary Sitaram Kunte, Bhushan said even though the health infrastructure is adequate as of now, the “state should plan for a worse-case scenario with sufficient lead time”.

    The central team which visited the state from March 7-11 inferred in its report that the administrative mechanism should be re-instated to the level witnessed in August-September 2020 to contain/supress COVID transmission.

    ALSO READ | ‘Three new COVID variants reported in India’: Government informs Rajya Sabha

    “ln all the districts visited by the central team, the test positivity rate was high, ranging from 51 per cent in Mumbai to 30 per cent in Aurangabad, implying that there are lot many cases that are not being tested and there is high transmission in the community,” the report underlined.

    ln view of limited contact tracing, a large pool of asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic people among contacts are not tracked and tested, the report said and stressed that testing must be considerably enhanced and protocol laid down by ICMR followed.

    “The absence of rigorous tracing, testing and containment is leading to sustained community transmission,” it said.

    “The case-contact ratio is more than 1:20. Though it appears high, a deep dive into the methodology of contact tracing revealed that the main concept of contact tracing was not clearly understood by field level staff, who were mainly listing the immediate family and neighborhood contacts, for the sake of listing.

    “The high-risk contacts in workplace settings, social settings and family settings were not investigated and listed,” the report highlighted.

    The report stated that the current case fatality was found to be very high among admitted cases in Government Medical College in Aurangabad and in Vasant Rao Pawar Medical College, Nashik which needs to be investigated in detail, including sending samples for whole genome sequencing, it said.

    Referring to the findings of the team, Bhushan said that containment strategy needs to be re-introduced, containment zones must be better defined based on contact listing, digital mapping of cases and contacts and should be much larger to include the area of influence of cases/ contacts.

    “The buffer zones need to be delineated. The perimeter control needs to be strictly enforced. For each containment zone, the Rapid Response Teams should develop an operational plan,” he said.

    Bhushan also stressed on augmenting testing to bring the test positivity rate to less than 5 per cent and strengthening surveillance by active house to house search for active cases/contacts in containment zones (as per the containment plan).

     Further, passive surveillance for ILI and SARI must be enhanced through health institutions,and involvement of  private practitioners.

    “The Incident Command under the leadership of district collector and municipal commissioner should be actively re-instated with whole of government approach to contain/ suppress the transmission. This should be monitored at the highest level,” Bhushan said.

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    For every positive case, at least 20 to 30 close contacts (including family contacts, social contacts’ workplace contacts and other casual contacts) need to be promptly traced and tracked and the practice of isolating 80-85 pre cent of active cases kept in home isolation needs to be reviewed, he said in the letter.

    “Vaccine hesitancy among frontline workers needs to be addressed as their services would be required if the trajectory follows the upward swing as is being witnessed now. The state should also expedite vaccinating those with co-morbidities and elderly,”  Bhushan stated.

    The pandemic situation in Maharashtra became grimmer on Tuesday as the state recorded 17,864 new cases — highest one-day rise this year — and 87 deaths, a health official said.

    The caseload in the state rose to 23,47,328 and death toll reached 52,996.

    As many as 9,510 patients were discharged from hospitals during the day, taking the total of recoveries to 21,54,253.

    There are 1,38,813 active cases in the state now.

    Earlier, the state had recorded 17,000-plus cases in a day more than once in September 2020.

    On Tuesday, Pune city recorded the highest 1,954 new cases followed by 1,951 in Nagpur and 1,922 in Mumbai city.

    Pune division comprising civic bodies of Pune, Pimpri Chinchwad as well as districts of Pune, Solapur and Satara reported 3,994 new cases, highest among the divisions.

    The number of cases in the Pune division stood at 5,66,518 and death toll at 11,884.

    Mumbai’s COVID-19 tally increased to 3,47,597 and four deaths took the fatality count to 11,543.

    Mumbai division reported 3,671 new cases and six deaths, taking the cumulative caseload to 7,66,578 and death toll to 19,974.

    Nashik division’s case tally stood at 3,23,173 and the death toll at 5,387.

    Kolhapur division has reported 1,21,415 cases and 4,091 deaths till now, while Aurangabad division’s case tally stands at 93,452 and death count at 2,115.

    Latur division has reported 94,418 cases until now and 2,570 fatalities.

    Akola division has reported 1,20,995 cases while 1,935 people have succumbed to the disease until now.

    Nagpur division has reported 2,60,633 infections and 4,949 fatalities so far.

    With 1,06,274 tests carried out on Tuesday, the state has so far tested 1,77,15,522 samples for coronavirus.

    For the first time the state carried out over one lakh tests in a day in this calendar year.

    There are 6,52,531 people in home quarantine while 6,067 are in institutional quarantine.

    Out of 87 deaths, 36 occurred in the last 48 hours and 31 in the last week.

    Rest were from the period before that.

    Maharashtra’s COVID-19 figures are as follows: Positive cases: 23,47,328, New cases: 17,864, Death toll: 52,996, Discharged: 21,54,253, Active cases: 1,38,813, people tested so far: 1,77,15,522.

    (With PTI Inputs)

    Trends and the big picture

    MP government to impose night curfew in Bhopal and Indore from Wednesday (10 pm to 6 am). Also, shops ordered to close at 10 pm in eight other cities.

    Gujarat to increase night curfew timings by two hours in Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot from 10 pm to 6 am.

    India recorded 24,492 new COVID-19 cases, going past  20,000 for the sixth day in a row. Total cases in the country stood at 1,14,09,831.

    5.86 crore doses of Made in India Covid vaccines provided to 71 countries both as grant as well as commercial sales as of Monday.

    Amid concern over adverse  effects of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, the European regulator said there was no indication the shot was responsible for blood clots, adding benefits outweigh risks.

    China makes it mandatory for people from India and 19 other nations to get Chinese-made vaccines if they want to visit the country.