Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan will chair a high-level meeting with states on the COVID-19 situation and vaccination, through video conference .
Last week, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya had chaired a meeting with the key experts and officials in view of an upsurge of COVID-19 cases in some states.
The Union Health Minister stressed the need to focus on districts reporting high case positivity and called for adequate testing with a higher proportion of RTPCR and effective COVID-19 surveillance to assess and control the spread of infection in a timely manner.
He also directed the officials to continue to focus on surveillance and on Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) to scan for any possible mutation.
Calling for increasing the pace of vaccination including booster doses in districts reporting high cases, the Health Minister said that the focus should be on accelerating vaccination among the eligible and vulnerable groups.
India recorded 11,793 new coronavirus infections, pushing the country’s tally to 4,34,18,839, while the active cases rose to 96,700, the Union Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
The death toll climbed to 5,25,047 with 27 new fatalities, data updated at 8 am by the ministry stated.
The 27 new fatalities included 13 from Kerala, five from Maharashtra, three each from Delhi and Punjab and one each from Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram and Uttarakhand.
The active cases comprise 0.22 per cent of the total infections.
The national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.57 per cent, the health ministry said.
An increase of 2,280 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 case count in a span of 24 hours, it said.
The daily positivity rate was recorded at 2.49 per cent, while the weekly positivity rate was recorded at 3.36 per cent, the ministry said.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,27,97,092, while the case fatality rate was 1.21 per cent.
According to the ministry, 197.31 crore doses of vaccine have been administered in the country so far under the nationwide COVID-19 inoculation drive.
