Centre asks states to report influenza-like symptoms amid Covid cases' surge

"As the Covid-19 virus continues to circulate and its epidemiology behaviour gets settled in Indian weather conditions and circulation of other usual pathogens, it is of utmost importance that we maintain a state of constant vigil over the Covid situation, right up to the district levels," the Health Ministry stated.

India's Covid-19 situation remains under control, with an active caseload of 1,828 as of Monday.'

However, one death was reported in Kerala, where the JN.1 subvariant of the coronavirus was recently detected.

Citing the upcoming festive season, the Centre said there is a need to "put in place requisite public health measures and other arrangements to minimize the risk of increase in transmission of the diseases by adherence to the maintenance of respiratory hygiene".

The states have been asked to monitor and report district-wise influenza-like illness and severe acute respiratory illness cases in all health facilities regularly.

In the wake of the surge in respiratory diseases and the new JN.1 Covid sub-variant, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said that the virus is evolving and changing and urged the member states to continue with strong surveillance and sequence sharing.

"Ensure a higher number of RT-PCR tests and send the positive samples for genome sequencing to Indian SARS COV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) laboratories so as to enable timely detection of new variants, if any, in the country," the Centre told states.