There has been an increase in Covid cases in India throughout the flu season. For the first time in 109 days, the active number of Covid-19 cases in India topped 5,000 on Friday. According to data issued by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the country had a one-day increase of 796 coronavirus infections.
According to the report, the number of active cases stood at 5,026 as of March 17, while the country registered 5,30,795 deaths.
According to health ministry data, 98,727 tests were performed on Thursday, and 220.64 crore doses of the Covid-19 vaccine had been provided as part of the statewide vaccination drive.
With a spike in Covid-19 instances being reported alongside seasonal flu, the Union Health Secretary has written to six states, which account for the majority of new cases: Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Gujarat.
Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan advised states in a letter sent on Thursday to perform appropriate and proactive testing, monitor emerging clusters and influenza-like illnesses, and transmit samples of overseas travellers, sentinel sites, and clusters for genome sequencing. He has also encouraged the states to take steps to promote cautionary doses and ensure people adopt Covid-appropriate behaviours.
According to the letter, a sub-variant of the recombinant variety XBB was detected from both Maharashtra and Gujarat. According to data from India’s Covid-19 genome sequencing project, the recombinant variant XBB, which united two Omicron sub-variants BA.2.10.1 and BA.2.75, was discovered in all samples sequenced from mid-February onwards, replacing previous sub-variants such BA.2.75, BA.2.10, and BA.2 (INSACOG).
Meanwhile, according to local media sources, a new virus combination was detected in two people who had returned from abroad and landed at Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport.
The virus is thought to be a hybrid of BA.1 (Omicron) and BA.2 strains. According to the story, the patients were a couple in their thirties who got the infection from their kid.
With PTI inputs
