India has started testing for COVID-19 randomly on international passengers arriving at its airports, the country’s federal health minister said, citing a rise in cases in neighboring China. Mandabiya unveiled new rules in parliament on Thursday, calling on state governments to step up surveillance for new coronavirus variants and to send samples of all positive cases to genome sequencing laboratories. According to local media reports, at least four of his cases of BF.7, a variant of Omicron currently surging in China, have been found in India.
But his Randeep Guleria, a pulmonologist and former director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in the capital New Delhi, told the news portals that the situation in India is different from China. “Both the lifting of the zero Covid policy and a large number of people [in China] who have never been exposed to the virus, they are now exposed to the BF.7 variant, which is spreading very rapidly,” he said. said. . “Also, immunization coverage is not as good as in India, so these factors are likely contributing to the spread of infection,” he added. Grella said his BF.7 strain of coronavirus had been in India for at least two to three months.
`We haven’t seen a big surge yet, and the number of cases is declining. He added that India still needs to be vigilant because Health Minister Mandhabya has urged the public to wear masks and maintain social distancing, although there are no official restrictions on either. India eased mask-wearing rules earlier this year after a sharp decline in coronavirus cases. It has reported the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the world since the pandemic began, but confirmed infections have fallen sharply in recent months.
Mandaviya said the Indian government has no plans yet to suspend flights from countries where new cases have been reported.
The rise in cases in China has prompted health experts in India to advise the public on wearing face masks and booster doses. On Thursday, India’s premier medical association, the Indian Medical Association, called on people to wear masks in all public places and get vaccine boosters at weddings, political and social gatherings, and abroad. He urged people to avoid public gatherings such as traveling. “At this time, the situation is not alarming and there is no need to panic. Prevention is better than cure,” the statement said. India, with a population of about 1.4 billion, has administered more than 2.2 billion doses of her COVID-19 vaccine, but only 27% of the population has received her third booster.
