India needs to take big, decisive steps to stop an emerging second peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday as the country reported its highest daily spike in three months.
"If we don't stop this pandemic right now, then there could be a nationwide outbreak," Modi said at a virtual meeting with heads of regional governments.
Modi said the fact that the disease was now emerging in tier two and three towns - unlike the first wave when it was concentrated in big urban centres - was worrying as this could lead to its spread in adjoining rural hinterlands which have so far been less affected.
After a peak of more than 90,000 new cases daily in mid-September, the trajectory of the disease had dipped till February 9 when it reached its lowest point of just 9,110 cases.
But it has been rising since then and there had been a 37-per-cent increase in just the past two weeks, federal Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said.
A total of 28,903 new cases and 188 deaths have been reported in 24 hours between Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.
Almost 84 per cent of the new cases were concentrated in six states: Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.
State governments had to put in place micro-containment zones as cases emerged in an area and follow the test-track-treat route, besides aggressively promoting Covid-19 appropriate behaviour, Modi said.
At least 70 per cent of tests had to be the RT-PCR and not antigen tests like was being done in some states like Kerala and Uttar Pradesh.
Modi also said the number of vaccine centres needed to be increased.
He said around 10 per cent of vaccines sent to Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh states were being wasted as they were not being used by their expiry date and urged the authorities of these states to review their processes.
India, a country of 1.3 billion people, started a vaccine roll-out on January 16.
A little over 35 million doses of the vaccine have been delivered so far with 6.2 million people, mostly health and front-line workers, receiving a second dose.
The government said 59.4 million doses of vaccines produced in the country had been shipped to 72 nations amid criticism by some opposition lawmakers that it was indulging in vaccine diplomacy instead of opening up the vaccination programme to all its citizens to effectively counter the virus.
"The house should be aware that the supply of vaccines abroad is based on the assessment of adequate availability at home," Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said in parliament on Wednesday.
"This is continuously monitored and takes into account the requirements of our domestic vaccination programme as it unfolds in different phases."
Currently, besides health workers, people above 60 and those above 45 with comorbidities are eligible to be vaccinated.
Source: DPA
