New Delhi, January 04 (HS): The Joint Monitoring Group (JMG) of Health, chaired by Atul Goyal, DGHS, Ministry of Family Welfare, met on Saturday in view of the reports of increasing cases of respiratory diseases in China in the last few weeks. The meeting was attended by experts from the World Health Organization (WHO), Disaster Management (DM) Cell, Integrated Disease Surveillance Program (IDSP), National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Emergency Medical Relief (EMR) Division and hospitals including All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi.

The meeting said that the situation is not unusual in view of the flu season in China. Reports also suggest that the current increase is due to influenza virus, RSV and HMPV - common pathogens occurring in this season. The government is keeping a close watch on the situation through all available means and the World Health Organization has also been requested to share timely information about the situation in China.

Sharing the details of the meeting, the ministry said that this virus is already present across the world including India. A robust surveillance system for influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) for influenza is already in place in India through both ICMR and IDSP networks and data from both shows that there has been no abnormal increase in ILI and SARI cases.

Physicians from hospitals have also confirmed that there has been no increase in cases of respiratory illnesses in the last few weeks apart from the expected seasonal variation.

The ICMR network also tests for other respiratory viruses such as adenovirus, RSV, hMPV etc. and these pathogens also do not show an abnormal increase in the samples tested. As a precautionary measure, the number of laboratories testing for hMPV will be increased by ICMR and ICMR will monitor hMPV throughout the year.

The recent corona management across the country has shown that the country is fully prepared to deal with any increase in respiratory illnesses. The ministry is fully prepared to deal with any health challenge in the country.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Indrani Sarkar