The Union Health Ministry on Saturday said the case of JN.1 subvariant of Covid-19 was detected in Kerala, as part of the ongoing routine surveillance by INSACOG. 

The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) is a network of Genomic Laboratories that has been monitoring Covid-19 in India from a genomic perspective; and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is a part of this consortium. 

In line with the revised surveillance guidelines for COVID-19, patients with influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) are tested for Covid-19 and positive cases are referred for Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS).

The said case was detected in an RT-PCR positive sample from Karakulam, Thiruvananthapuram.

The sample tested RT-PCR positive on November 18. The patient had mild symptoms of influenza-like Illness and has since recovered from Covid-19, the Union Health Ministry said in a statement. 

“There has been an increasing trend of Covid-19 cases from Kerala since the last few weeks. This has been attributed to an increase in number of samples from ILI cases being referred for testing,” a Ministry official said adding, “a majority of these cases are clinically mild and recovering on their own at their homes without any treatment.” 

As part of a regular exercise, a mock drill in all State health facilities is currently underway to assess their public health and hospital preparedness measures. This activity, which started from December 13th is being carried out under the overall supervision of the district collectors and is likely to be completed by December 18. “Union Ministry of Health is in regular touch with the State Department of Health, Kerala and monitoring various points of entry,” the official said.

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