The Union minister was interacting with people on social media during the third episode of Sunday Samvaad, adding that the cases of people contracting the deadly virus a second time after being cured were negligible at this time and were being studied by a panel of experts from India. Council for Medical Research.
“The ICMR is also actively investigating reports of reinfection and although the number of reinfection cases is negligible at this time, the government is fully aware of the importance of the matter,” Vardhan said during their virtual interaction.
Vardhan’s statements come amid suspected Covid-19 reinfection cases being reported from abroad and from Indian states such as Telangana, Karnataka, Gujarat, Punjab and Maharashtra.
Meanwhile, the Union Health Ministry is considering collecting data from such cases to determine their veracity, the PTI news agency previously reported, citing sources.
They said it must be confirmed whether these cases are in fact a second distinct infection and not just lingering effects of the first.
This can only be done by analyzing the genetic sequence to see if it is the same strain of virus that caused the first infection or a different one.
To collect data on suspected COVID-19 reinfection cases, the health ministry may also issue guidelines and a format based on which database of all such cases should be maintained by the State Surveillance Units (SSU) and Surveillance Units of District (DSU) sources said, according to PTI.
Furthermore, the Union minister also added that India is far from achieving herd immunity for Covid-19.
“The indications from the second sero survey to be released soon are that we are far from having achieved some kind of herd immunity, which requires that we all follow the appropriate covid-19 behavior,” said Harsh Vardhan. The first serum survey in May 2020 revealed that the national prevalence of the new coronavirus infection was only 0.73%.
On emerging evidence that the disease affects not only the lungs but also other organ systems, especially cardiovascular and kidney, the health minister said that the union’s health ministry has already established expert committees to investigate these facets of the covid- 19.
“The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) is also looking into this issue,” he said.
India reported more than 88,000 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours on Sunday, bringing the country’s total count to nearly 60 lakh since the outbreak, according to data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
However, with 92,043 new virus-related recoveries since Saturday.
Apart from this, 1,124 deaths were also recorded in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of deaths recorded since the pandemic began to more than 93,000.
With inputs from agencies
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