Health Minister Mandaviya to hold review meeting to discuss rising Covid cases

New Delhi, Jun 23: Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya will on Thursday chair a high-level review meeting with the core team of experts over increasing cases of COVID-19 in the country.

India has been witnessing an increase in coronavirus infections over the last couple of weeks.

As on date, 10 states - Maharashtra, Kerala, Delhi, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal and Gujarat - have over 1,000 active cases.

The core team of experts will include AIIMS director Dr Randip Guleria, ICMR Director General Dr Balram Bhargava and NCDC director Sujeet Singh.

Amid covid rise, states/UTs were asked to submit "larger number" of samples for whole genome sequencing from districts and areas which had seen a surge in COVID-19 cases over a period of seven days.

The direction was issued to check the possibility of any new emerging variant or sub-variant and ascertain the reasons behind the breakthrough infections.

According to the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) experts, Omicron and its sublineages, primarily BA. 2 and BA.2.38, as of now, seem to be behind the current rise in Covid cases.

India reported 13,313 fresh COVID-19 cases with 38 deaths in the last 24 hours, Union Health Ministry data said on Thursday.

With 10,972 people recuperating from the illness, the total number of recovered cases in the country reached 4,27,36,027 since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the Daily positivity rate stands at 2.03%, the Weekly Positivity Rate is currently at 2.81%.

India's Active Caseload currently stands at 83,990 and it now constitutes 0.19% of the country's total Positive Cases.