Send sewage samples to sentinel sites monitoring poliovirus: Centre to states

India’s active caseload stands at 11,558. While the country’s weekly positivity rate stands at 0.27%, Delhi reported a positivity rate of 5.33% on Saturday. At the meeting with the states, the Centre said “there was no cause for concern” as the majority of cases continued to be linked to the highly transmissible Omicron BA.2, which drove the third wave. However, surveillance and monitoring of a new variant would remain the top priority to detect the emergence of the new clusters, sources told The Indian Express.

The Centre has specifically asked the states to implement a two-prong approach to detect a new variant of the novel virus. First, all tertiary and secondary care hospitals should be set up with dedicated influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) clinics, the states were told.

“It should be like an OPD where people with influenza-like symptoms can straightway go to. States have been asked to conduct 100 per cent RT-PCR testing and the samples should be sent for genome sequencing so that we know if and where a new variant is emerging,” sources said.

Second, sources said, states had been informed that the National Centre for Disease Control would be the coordinating agency for the surveillance and monitoring of any variant detected from sewage samples.

Sewage surveillance helps capture any new variant and the spread of Covid-19 in a community setting. By measuring the levels of virus in the untreated water over a period, local health authorities can ascertain early warning signals of emergence of new clusters. At present, states such as Karnataka have begun sewage surveillance.

“We have told them that sentinel sites are the same as that of polio. For years now, we are collecting these sewage water samples to detect the presence of any wild polio in India. These sites will now also carry out surveillance for Covid-19. There are more than 60 sites that will be carrying out the surveillance,” sources said.

In the backdrop of the national capital and the adjoining regions reporting an increase in cases, the Centre has highlighted the states that schools should remain open. “We have told states not to go in for a knee-jerk reaction.

For instance, there is no need to shut the entire school if five children have tested positive,” states were reportedly told.

The Centre told states to issue directions to parents that if their child had symptoms of flu or influenza, they should not come to school and be subjected to RT-PCR test. “We have also told the states to tell school management that if within the school the faculty or children are detected with flu or influenza or respiratory symptoms, they should be requested to go home. But there is no need to shut down the entire school,” sources said.