Government To Launch Platform To Track Breakthrough Infections: Sources

With reports of breakthrough infections - where people contracted the virus after coronavirus vaccination - emerging across the country, the government is planning to launch a platform by next week to track such cases, sources told NDTV. The platform, which will be available in the public domain, will provide information on the number of breakthrough infections, and also the number of hospitalisation and deaths due to it, they said.

The platform is being made by collecting data on the name of the Covid vaccine, RT-PCR report, and the status of those who contracted the infection, NDTV has learnt.

"An entire stream is working for the analysis of the breakthrough infections so far across the country. Samples with breakthrough infection are being sought from the states and genomic sequencing is being done so that the size, type, behavior of the virus can be tracked," the source in the Health Ministry said.

By providing the information in the public domain, the platform will further strengthen the trust among the people about the vaccines, the source said, pointing out that the coronavirus infection among the vaccinated patients has been found to be "very mild". Only a few people were hospitalised due to breakthrough infections, they said.

"So far no new variants or mutations have been confirmed in such sequencing. In the next two weeks, it is expected that concrete information will come about samples with breakthrough infection.," he said.

Breakthrough infections have been reported from across the states but the situation in Kerala, which currently is contributing over 50 per cent of new cases, has been a cause of concern with the southern state reporting more than 40,000 cases where vaccinated people have contracted the virus.

The Central government has asked Kerala to provide samples to detect the genomic sequence in all cases of breakthrough infections to figure out if there has been a mutation, sources told NDTV.