Rajesh Bhushan to hold meeting with States on rising ILI & SARI cases

A nationwide mock drill is being planned for April 10-11 in which health facilities from all the districts are expected to participate

Recently the Union Health Secretary, Rajesh Bhushan and Dr Rajiv Bahl, DG, ICMR issued a letter to the States/UTs chief secretaries and senior health officers regarding keeping a “States and UTs must keep a close watch on the evolving etiologies (causes of diseases) which is Influenza Like Illness (ILI) & Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) cases.

In the advisory, the Union health secretary highlighted the precautions that need to be taken by the people.

“As you may be aware, COVID-19 and influenza share a number of similarities in terms of mode of transmission, high-risk population, clinical signs and symptoms. While this may present a clinical dilemma for the attending doctors in terms of diagnosis, this also renders both these diseases easily preventable by following simple public health measures like avoiding overcrowded and poorly ventilated settings, using a handkerchief/tissue while sneezing or coughing, wearing a mask in crowded & closed settings, maintaining hand hygiene, avoiding spitting in public places, etc,” the advisory further said.

“It would also be useful to take a stock of hospital preparedness including drugs, beds including lCU beds; medical equipment, medical oxygen, capacity building of human resource on existing guidelines as well as vaccination coverage. To this effect, a nationwide mock drill is being planned on 10th and 11th April, 2023, wherein health facilities (both public and private) from all districts are expected to participate”, it added.

“In the past several weeks, in some States COVID-19 testing has declined & the current testing levels are insufficient as compared to the standards prescribed by some States heavily relying on the less sensitive rapid antigen tests. Hence it is critical to maintaining optimum testing for COVID-19, equitably distributed (with suitable modifications to address the emergence of new clusters of COVID cases) across the States. This is especially important to identify any emerging hotspots & take pre-emptive steps to curb virus transmission”