Genome sequencing has progressively increased in country

Union Health Ministry has said that genome sequencing and analysis of the COVID-19 has progressively increased in the country. It said, as many states started witnessing rising trends of Covid-19, the sequencing was enhanced. The Ministry said, when many states like Maharashtra, Punjab and Delhi started showing rising trends in the month of February this year, the sequencing was enhanced in four districts of Vidharbha, 10 districts of Maharashtra and 10 districts of Punjab. It said, initial part sequencing aimed at detecting Variants of Concern among incoming international travellers. States have been repeatedly advised to send adequate number of samples for sequencing.
The clarification came in the wake of allegation made in some media report that genome sequencing and analysis of the COVID-19 declined sharply in the country even as cases of the disease continued to rise. The report further claims that the country sequenced very low number of samples till date. Moreover, the numbers have not been fixed to 300 samples per month or 10 sentinel sites per state. These are the indicative numbers and the states/UTs have been provided the flexibility of identifying more sentinel sites ensuring geographic representation from all parts.