The Federal Ministry of the Interior on Tuesday extended existing guidelines for coronavirus disease (Covid-19) until December 31. After the omicron outbreak, the Minister of the Interior has advised the state governments to ensure strict compliance with the Ministry of Health’s November 25 recommendations.

In its consultation, the Ministry of Health has instructed states to strictly screen and test all passengers on international flights. The Ministry of Health further stated in its guidelines that contacts of these passengers should also be closely tracked and tested.

The state government has been instructed to send travelers’ samples to INSACOG laboratories for genome sequencing.

Due to growing concerns about omicron variants that may be more contagious, Federal Minister of Health Rajesh Bhushan held a review meeting with the states and the Federal Territories (UT) on Tuesday and recommended that they strengthen testing to Find and manage cases as early as possible. While emphasizing that the new variants cannot escape RT-PCR and RAT testing, Bhushan requires the states and UT to ensure adequate infrastructure and supervised home isolation.

So far, no new variants of omicron have been discovered in the country.

The B.1.1.529 Covid variant (named omicron by the World Health Organization) was first discovered in South Africa last week. It is designated by the World Health Organization as a “variant of concern”, which is the highest category of worrying coronavirus variants for health institutions.

On Sunday, the center put forward stricter guidelines for people from or transiting “high-risk” countries, and issued a series of instructions to states to strengthen testing and monitoring measures and sanitation facilities. About a dozen countries have detected omicron cases there, and the center has designated them as “at risk.”

News Source : Hindustan Times