Chennai: A multi-disciplinary team of experts from the Union Health Ministry reached Chennai Sunday following a directive from the Centre to visit and study States where the vaccination rate is below the national average and Covid cases reported a spike in view of the Omicron variant.
Starting today, the team will review for next five days Tamilnadu’s preparedness to handle Omicron, the government’s strategies and the healthcare infrastructure in the State.
The committee is expected to meet health Minister M Subramanian and undertake an inspection of Covid facilities at government hospitals.
The tean will also look into the preparatory measures against further spread of the virus in Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur, Chengalpattu and Chennai and submit a report to the Union Health Ministry.
The multi-disciplinary team will specifically look at areas of contact tracing, including surveillance, containment operations and Covid-19 testing, including sending an adequate number of samples from clusters to the INSACOG network for genome sequencing.
A memorandum from the Union Health Ministry stated that multi-disciplinary central teams have been deployed in 10 States — Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamilnadu, West Bengal, Mizoram, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Punjab — which are reporting either increasing number of Omicron and Covid 19 cases or slow vaccination pace.
‘A decision has been taken to deploy multi-disciplinary Central teams to 10 identified States some of which are either reporting an increasing number of Omicron and COVID-19 cases or slow vaccination pace,’ it said in a statement.
The Ministry added: ‘Multi-disciplinary Central teams to be deployed in Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamilnadu, West Bengal, Mizoram, Karnataka, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Punjab.’
Amid the surge in the cases of Omicron variant of coronavirus, the Health Ministry said that 61 per cent of the adult population is fully vaccinated, while 89 per cent has received their first vaccine dose.