How Omicron-Ready Is Odisha Amidst IMA’s Warning Of A Third Wave?

Bhubaneswar: The Indian Medical Association (IMA) on Tuesday warned of a massive third wave striking the country unless adequate measures were carried out. The top medical body said taking precautionary measures is key to combating the challenge. Omicron is a heavily mutated coronavirus variant that has infected nearly two dozen people across India.

The IMA said Omicron is highly transmissible and will affect more people considering the available evidence and experience observed in other countries. “At a time when India is limping back to normalcy, this is a great setback. If we do not take adequate measures, we may have a massive third wave,” association members said at a press conference on Monday.

IIT-Kanpur professor Manindra Agarwal has also said the third wave of coronavirus infections will likely peak in India between January and February 2022 with cases reaching up to 1.5 lakh a day. But the fresh outbreak is expected to be milder, he stated.

As of now, five Indian states have detected cases: Maharashtra (10), Karnataka (two), Rajasthan (nine), Gujarat (one), and Delhi (one).

Taking a cue from its past experience, Maharashtra is being proactive this time and is taking a slew of measures in every district, making it mandatory to carry out a survey on Influenza-like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) in the high-risk groups. Taking into consideration the cases of transmissibility in Europe and South Africa, Maharashtra is focussing on cluster cases. It has asked for a proactive search of cluster cases or breakthrough infection cases and is directing re-infection (breakthrough) cases for RTPCR tests.

In Odisha, where 40 per cent of the 800 foreign returnees who have travelled back from at-risk countries such as the UK, South Africa, Brazil, Botswana, China, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore and Israel since November 26 are yet to be traced, raising concern over the possible spread of Omicron in the state.

Six travellers who tested positive for COVID-19 since their arrival in Odisha on  November 26, when WHO designated B.1.1.529 strain of COVID-19 as a variant of concern and named it Omicron had returned from Dubai, Uganda and Saudi Arabia.

Anticipating a third wave, Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mohapatra spoke to all district collectors, SPs and chief district medical officers asking them to bring back stringency in the implementation of mask and social distancing norms. He also suggested taking action against violators and imposing penalty on them.

Additional chief secretary (health) Raj Kumar Sharma has directed all testing facilities to send COVID-19 swab samples for genome sequencing as well.

Also read: Omicron Scare: Samples Of Six Foreign Returnees Among 246 Under Genome Sequencing

Also read: As Omicron Cases Surge In India, 40% Foreign Returnees Untraceable In Odisha!