The Uttarakhand government has come into an alert mode on JN.1, the new variant of Covid-19. The State health department issued an advisory for the JN.1 variant on Tuesday. The health secretary R Rajesh Kumar said the advisory has been issued in view of an increase in the number of patients of the new variant in some states of the country. He said that all the district magistrates and the chief medical officers have been directed to ensure that the guidelines for prevention of spread of Covid-19 are followed in the hospitals. He said that the patients suffering from respiratory illness, lung and heart ailments should be monitored and tested for influenza. Kumar said that though no patient of the new variant of Covid-19 has been reported in the State as yet, all the hospitals have been put on an alert as a precautionary measure.
In the order the secretary said that the operational guidelines for revised surveillance strategy in context of Covid-19 should be followed and the patients suffering from Influenza like illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) should be tested for Covid-19. The details of all such patients should be compulsorily registered in the integrated health information portal (IHIP) under the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP). The guideline directs that the people should be made aware about the respiratory hygiene.
