Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, who chaired a high-level COVID review meeting on Thursday, directed state governments to focus on districts reporting high case positivity and undertake adequate testing with a higher proportion of RTPCR tests.
The meeting was called owing to the sudden spike in COVID-19 cases. He further instructed the officials to continue to focus on surveillance and on Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) to scan for any possible mutation along with increasing the pace of vaccination.
The meeting was attended by the core team of experts including Dr Randip Guleria, ICMR Director-General Dr Balram Bhargava and NCDC director Sujeet Singh.
Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, Secretary of Department of Biotechnology Rajesh S Gokhale, Secretary in the Department of Pharmaceuticals S Aparna were also present at the meeting.