As the threat of Omicron, a new form of Corona variant lingers across the world, the Jharkhand Government too has made elaborate plans to deal with any type of emergency. Additional chief secretary, health medical education and family welfare Arun Kumar Singh has issued fresh directives to all Deputy Commissioners (DCs) ensuring preparedness and privative measures in view of the latest variant of concern i.e Omicron.
The additional chief secretary has stressed on the need to enhance surveillance and genome sequencing efforts for better understanding of circulating SARS-Cov-2 variants. Genomic surveillance is of crucial importance for early detection and monitoring the epidemiological trends of emerging variants and will provide information to guide response.
As per the direction, a prerequisite f negative test report of last 72 hours and those who have been vaccinated with both doses of Covid 19 vaccines and have 15 days have lapsed since the administration of second dose of vaccines with final vaccination certificate may be exempted from any additional test of Covid 19.
Also, if a person has traveled to any risky country in the last 14 days he/she will be asked for post arrival testing and other additional restrictions. Constant vigilance regarding transmission of any variant is essential; enhanced testing is the only strategy for detection of the virus as per the earlier guidelines of ICMR. The district administration has been directed to share the list of passengers arriving from other states. For detection of hotspots and clusters active surveillance and testing should be done.
Districts surveillance officers/nodal officers RT PCR labs/HOD, microbiology are expected to facilitate this exercise by closely following up their designated/tagged IGLEs i.e institute of life sciences Bhubaneswar for expediting sample transportation as well as results of genomic analysis. The districts have been asked to give pace to vaccination as it is an effective way to keep away the virus.
Regular press briefing by districts for promoting covid appropriate behavior and the vaccination. District administration has been asked to give emphasis on the need of critical infrastructure including all types of beds, human resources equipment, drugs and consumables. Special focus on the fifth fold strategy of test, track, isolate, treat, vaccinate.
As per the testing strategy of the State most of the persons should be classified into groups of vulnerable persons, super spreaders and general populations are tested as per the priority. Testing should be increased in the areas reporting high cases. Contract testing of all 100 per cent positive cases should be done.