Ranchi: State Health Secretary, Arun Kumar Singh, on Friday wrote to all civil surgeons and district surgeons, directed them to send more covid-19 samples to the Institute of Life Sciences (ILS), Bhubaneswar for intact genome sequencing (WGS ).
“It has been observed that the number of samples sent to ILS for WG so far is less than the expected amount.
I have directed the heads of all Sentinel sites to ensure that they sent a number of adequate samples for genome sequencing.
I also direct them updating real-time details about The Early SARS-COV-2 India Genomi Supervision Module (Insacog), “said Singh.
The letter came after the updated guidelines and soup for the supervision of the SARS-COV-2 genome because it was very important from the public health perspective to determine the events and prevalence of a variant that became a concern (VOC).
“WGS is the only way to track new mutations and VOCs.
I have directed the officials concerned to report clinical findings from all the samples regularly on the supervision module so that the results can be used for epidemiological findings,” Singh said.
As per the records of the State Health Department, the sample 917 RT-PCR has been sent to ILS between March 28 and August 5 for WGS, where 426 has been detected as a VOC.
VOC detected in Jharkhand includes various Delta mutants, Kappa and Alpha, along with 40 other variants.
The health department guidelines stated that more than 1,200 covid samples should be sent for WG between March 28 and August 5 of all eight Sentinel sites.
Each sentinel site must send 30 samples per month for WGS.
In addition, 60 random positive samples with CT 25 and less need to be sent.
Sentinel sites on charges say that they are trying to do our best in sending samples but with the level of testing covid down, they don’t get the number of samples needed.
Microbiologists attached to the Sentinel site in Ranchi with anonymous requirements, “because the level of testing has fallen because the infection has decreased, we do not get a sample that has a CT value equal to and less than 25.”