Covid alert: More foreigners test positive, SII to give 2 cr Covishield doses to Centre for free; 10 points

India Covid updates: Two more foreigners tested positive for Covid on Wednesday, taking the total tally to 41 ever since the random testing of air passengers began at airports. In the past 24 hours, India reported 188 new cases and 141 recoveries, which took the active case number to 3,468.

Here are 10 key updates on Covid

- Amid the alarming rise in Covid cases in some countries, India is likely to make filling up of 'air suvidha' forms and 72-hour prior RT-PCR testing mandatory from next week for international passengers coming from China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Singapore.

- Two international passengers tested positive for Covid at the Mumbai International airport, the Maharashtra Health department informed. Both samples have been sent for whole genome sequencing.

- Two passengers, who returned from Dubai and Cambodia, tested positive for Covid at Chennai airport in Tamil Nadu. Of the two, one was from Cuddapah in Andhra Pradesh while the second person was from Pallavaram in Chennai.

- Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian said a woman and her six-year-old daughter, who returned from China via Colombo, had tested positive at the Madurai airport on Tuesday.

-  The woman and her daughter tested positive while another girl tested negative. From China, they had travelled to South Korea and Colombo and reached Madurai airport on Tuesday, the minister said.

- India is likely to make it mandatory for passengers arriving from China and five other Covid-hit places to have negative RT-PCR reports from next week.

- The experts in the government have cautioned that the next 40 days will be crucial as India may see a Covid surge in January. Even if there is a wave, they said, deaths and hospitalisation will be very low.

- An official said that previously, it has been noticed that a new wave of Covid hits India around 30-35 days after it hits East Asia.

- The Serum Institute of India has offered two crore doses of the Covishield vaccine to the Centre free of cost, official sources told PTI. The vaccine maker has written to the Health Ministry offering doses worth Rs 410 crore free of cost. 

- The latest spike in cases in China and other countries is being driven by BF.7, a sub-variant of Omicron. The transmissibility of BF.7 sub-variant is very high, according to health officials. A person infected with this variant can infect 16 people. 

Till Tuesday, 39 international passengers were found positive for Covid out of the 6,000 tested on arrival. Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya will visit the Delhi airport on Thursday to review testing and screening facilities there.

(With inputs from agencies)