Separate isolation area for Omicron positive patients must: Health Ministry

Asks state depts to ensure no cross infection takes place and adequate precautions are taken by healthcare workers to prevent transmission between them and patients

The health ministry has directed all states to ensure that all Omicron positive cases have to be treated in designated Covid facilities with a separate isolation area marked only for patients with the new variant.

Health ministry has asked state departments to ensure that no cross infection takes place and adequate precautions are taken by the healthcare workers to prevent transmission between them and other patients.

India has detected 23 Omicron positive patients in Maharashtra, Delhi, Karnataka and Rajasthan. Delhi has been isolating its suspected Omicron cases along with one patient who tested positive at the Lok Nayak Hospital.

In Mumbai, similarly such patients are being sent to Seven Hills Hospital. States would now have to draw plans to have separate wards for such patients. In an earlier conversation Rahul Pandit, director-critical care, Fortis Hospital in Mumbai and Member of the National Covid-19 Task Force had said that having such wards was neither practical nor necessary. “One cannot go for genome sequencing for every Covid-positive patient to know which variant has infected him or her. Medically, there is no need to isolate these patients,” he had said.

States have also been told to quickly track the primary and secondary contacts of these positive cases on a mission mode and test them. “It is critical to track all contacts of such cases, quarantine them without delay and test them as per the guidelines,” Rajesh Bhushan, health secretary said in a letter.

He has also suggested that states can utilise the e-Sanjeevani telemedicine platform, call centres and plan home visits by special teams to the contacts under home isolation and quarantine.

Government has asked states to keep a close watch on new clusters of Covid positive cases, vaccination breakthrough cases, reinfection cases and ensure prompt investigation of such events by their rapid response teams. “They should send all positive samples from these events to designated genome sequencing labs of INSACOG,” Bhushan added.

Health ministry has also said that it would be difficult to determine the true level of infection spread in absence of sufficient testing. States have to be on guard due to the onset of winter and increased pollution in some parts, the prevalence of influenza and severe and acute respiratory illnesses.

The World Health Organization had declared Omicron a variant of concern on November 26.

The health ministry, meanwhile, has said that the severity of the disease due to Omicron is anticipated to be low due to the fast pace of vaccination in India and high exposure to the delta variant as shown by high seropositivity.