India begins randomly testing 2% of international arrivals for COVID-19

By Anadolu Agency staff

NEW DELHI (AA) – India has started randomly testing 2% of all international passengers arriving at its airports for COVID-19, the country's health minister said on Thursday.

Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya informed the parliament that the government is keeping a watch and urged the state governments to increase community vigilance and also increase the administration of the vaccine’s precautionary doses.

Amid rising infections in neighboring China, the Indian government has directed all the authorities concerned to be alert and strengthen surveillance.

Mandaviya said the government will continue to manage the pandemic through "test, track, treat."

On Thursday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also chaired a high-level meeting to review the COVID-19 situation in the country.

The government earlier this week asked India’s states "to gear up for the whole genome sequencing of positive case samples to track the variants."

"Such an exercise will enable timely detection of new variants if any circulating in the country and will facilitate the undertaking of requisite public health measures for the same," a letter written by Indian Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan earlier this week said.

The Health Ministry also maintained that India has been able to restrict the transmission of the COVID-19 virus and is recording 1,200 cases on a weekly basis.

On Thursday, local media reported that in the last 24 hours, the country registered 185 new COVID-19 cases.

In the last several months, the country has reported a few cases of BF.7 omicron variant, which has been reported as highly transmissible.