A meeting was called by the Union Health Ministry on Wednesday to discuss the unexpected rise in Covid-19 cases and fatalities in certain regions of the nation, especially Kerala, where the Covid subvariant JN.1 was recently discovered.
The meeting is being chaired by Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya. Union Ministers SP Singh Baghel, Bharati Pravin Pawar, Health Secretary Sudhansh Pant, Secretary Department of Health Research Dr Rajiv Bahl and Dr VK Paul, Member, (Health), NITI Aayog, were also part of the meeting.
The development came after Kerala reported 292 new active cases of Covid-19 and three deaths on Tuesday, according to Union Health Ministry data. The total number of active cases in the state rose to 2,041.
In the past 24 hours, 224 people recovered from Covid-19, taking the total number of recoveries to 68.37 lakh (68,37,203).
India’s active caseload increased by 341 cases from the previous day to 2,311 on Wednesday. After 270 persons recovered from the illness the day before, the total number of recovered individuals rose to 4,44,70,346.
Despite the rise in Covid cases in Kerala, state Health Minister Veena George stated on Tuesday that there was no need to worry because the state was well equipped to tackle the viral infection.