In a letter to union health ministry, he expressed concerns on rising number of covid-19 cases in the country. The current Covid case growth rate of 6.8% in March 2021 has surpassed the previous record of 5.5% (June 2020), he wrote.

FICCI President Uday Shankar today requested union health minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan to consider vaccinating the age group of 18 to 45 years.

In a letter to union health ministry, he expressed concerns on rising number of covid-19 cases in the country. "The current Covid case growth rate of 6.8% in March 2021 has surpassed the previous record of 5.5% (June 2020)", he wrote.

He raised the concern of less testing target achieved currently (11 lakh samples a day) than the month of January when government achieved the target of testing 15 lakh samples a day. The letter noted that with 2440 covid testing labs operational in the country, there is a greater capacity for covid testing and recommended the ministry to ramp up testing people for covid across the states by utlilising the available resources to its maximum potential.

He further asked the government to consider starting the vaccination of the age group of 18 to 45 years.

He wrote, "This age group (18-45 years) has been acting as the super spreaders of infection in the country. One of the recent analysis in Tamil Nadu has demonstrated that people in the 18-45 age group accounted for 51% of the recent surge in coronavirus cases".

He added, "Given that there is no shortage of vaccines and there is a huge scope of augmenting inoculation capacity through greater involvement of private sector, we urge you to open up vaccination for this age group to help subside the spread of infection as well as severity of cases in the country."

He also offered the government support and cooperation in the initiative of mitigating the pandemic on the behalf of the Industry. The letter also acknowledged the ministry's effort in achieving a milestone in country's vaccination drive with the highest ever single day vaccination coverage figure of more than 36.7 lakh recorded in the last 24 hours.

Source : India Times