Centre is fully prepared to deal with Omicron variant of Corona; Mansukh Mandaviya

New Delhi: Union Health Minister Dr Mansukh Mandaviya has said that several precautionary measures have been taken to tackle the challenge of the new Coronavirus variant, ‘Omicron.’ In his 90-minutes reply in the Lok Sabha to the marathon discussion on the COVID pandemic, he said, two cases of infections due to the Omicron strain have been detected in Bengaluru, including one traveller from South Africa and another from the city.

He said, contact tracing has been done in both the cases and the COVID status of all the contacts has been ascertained. He said, the genome sequencing of the viral samples drawn



from those who tested positive among them is underway. He said, the new strain has been detected in 25 different countries as of 25th of November.

On the question of administering booster doses against COVID, the Minister said, the scientific opinion of the experts group on it will be taken into account while deciding about it.

Dr Mandaviya said, each and every district in the country will have a facility with at least 50 beds to treat the pandemic disease among other illnesses with modern diagnostic facilities capable of doing 115 kinds of tests.