Pramesh S Jain & Yogesh K Porwar
Strict screening and surveillance on travellers from 8 countries witnessing spike in cases
164th TAC Summary:
1.Special 
surveillance of International passengers.
• The international arrivals from these countries-China,Hong Kong,South Korea, Vietnam,Japan,Thailand,Germany,Italy,Australia, UK shall be subjected to following measures of surveillance.
• At the Airport -Thermal screening and checking of 2 dose/full vaccination certificate.
• At the residence-Daily tele-monitoring for Covid-19 symptoms and testing.
• Genomic surveillance of those who test positive.
2. Advisory on face masking in public areas.
• It is recommended to wear face mask in public areas particularly in closed spaces,crowds and during close conversations.
3. Ongoing clinical surveillance at Victoria hospital.
• Clinical surveillance for new symptoms and emergence of new variant is in progress.
4. Surveillance in animals for Covid-19.
• It is recommended to initiate this in collaboration with Institute of Animal Health and Veterinary biological,Hebbal,Bengaluru.
5. Ongoing sewage surveillance.
• ICMR in collaboration with BBMP is conducting sewage surveillance for Covid-19 and this shall be correlated with Covid-19 testing results in the corresponding areas.
Please ensure that all your vaccination doses are completed at the earliest,urged Health Minister K Sudhakar after an meeting with the COVID-19 Technical Advisory Committee amid a rise in of cases of the XE variant of COVID-19 in some foreign countries.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting Minister Sudhakar stated that there was an increase XE variant COVID-19 cases in 8 different countries including China,Hong Kong,South Korea,UK and Germany.
Additionally,he also stated that there was an increase of XE cases in Delhi and Haryana.
After the meeting Sudhakar said that the TAC has suggested thermal screening,strict surveillance, mandatory quarantine for a period of 7-10 days for passengers arriving from these eight countries.
Govt will soon release guidelines regarding this. Additionally, he urged people to wear masks, stating that IIT Kanpur has predicted another COIVD-19 wave around June and July.
He stressed on the fact that many haven’t completed their second dose.
4.77 crore (98%) of people under the 60+ category have taken the second dose of COVID-19 vaccine and only 49% of people have taken their precautionary dose.
There already is a declined immunity in this age group.I urge everyone to please complete all doses,” Minister Sudhakar said.
“Some have blamed the government for the COVID-19 wave and shortage of vaccine in the past.
Now,there is an adequate supply and we have made several requests to people to take the vaccine.People should take the vaccine and cooperate with the government,he added.
He said that among the 15-17 age group, 25,11,407 people out of 30,00,000 had taken the vaccine amounting to 79% and only 65% had taken the second dose.
Among the 12-14 age group,only 13,96,000 children have received the vaccine out of 20,00,000 amounting to 69%.
He urged parents to have their children vaccinated.As there are no vaccines for young kids,Sudhakar said that 5000 children will be tested across the state as per the recommendation of the TAC.
Price cap must be followed
We have received complaints of some hospitals overcharging for vaccines.The government will not tolerate this.
A high-level meeting has been held and committee has been formed in this regard. The capped prices for CT scans,MRI etc.
Must be considered as the new prices for future and not just for COVID-19.All officers have been given instructions in this regard.
Labs should not charge higher cost than the cap fixed by the government.If this rule is violated, the government has the right to revoke the license of the lab or hospital,he said.
