Ishfaq-ul-Hassan
SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir government has ramped up Covid testing amid reports of virus resurgence in different parts of the country.
“We are constantly watching the situation. We are regularly doing Covid testing at vulnerable points. We have not stopped it,” Dr. Saleem-ur-Rehman, director general, department of family welfare, and immunization, told The Kashmir Monitor.
India logged 1,134 new Covid cases, while the active caseload increased to 7,026.
The death toll climbed to 5,30,813 with five deaths with one each reported by Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Gujarat, and Maharashtra and one reconciled by Kerala. Officials said XBB 1.16, a new sub-lineage of the XBB variant of SARS-CoV-2 is behind the surge in India.
“We are conducting around 100 tests daily at Government Medical College (GMC) Srinagar lab. There is no resurgence. Most of the tests are negative,” said Dr. Muhammad Salim Khan, head, department of community medicine, GMC Srinagar.
Since there has been a COVID resurgence in different parts of the country, scientists have been calling for ramping up the booster dose to keep the new variant at bay.
Director General of immunization said options of resuming precautionary dose drive are also on the table. “Whenever there will be advisory, we will start the drive. We had started a special drive under Azadi Ka Amrit Mohatsav and people took the precautionary dose voluntarily. We are monitoring the situation. Once the Centre issues an advisory, we will start the drive,” he said.
Dr. Saleem said Jammu and Kashmir has attained 100 percent saturation in administering both doses. “We have immunized the entire population with both doses,” he said.
Jammu and Kashmir government has administered 24,582,649 vaccine doses till September 30 last year. Of these, 11,365,277 were the first, and 11,759,791 were the second dose. Around 1 1,457,581 precautionary doses have been administered till September 30 last year.
Jammu and Kashmir government had launched a dynamic vaccination campaign. Besides increasing vaccination sites across 20 districts, the government launched a door-to-door drive.
Such was the success of the vaccination campaign, that the Bombay High Court asked the central government to learn from the door-to-door vaccination program of Jammu and Kashmir, and Kerala. Officials from other states were seeking advice from J&K health honchos to increase vaccination coverage in their respective places.
