New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday that the strategy to deal with COVID-19 should be dynamic, innovative and constantly upgraded as he underlined the dangers posed by the virus which, he noted, is invisible and often mutates.

India reported on Thursday 276,110 new coronavirus infections over the last 24 hours, while deaths rose by 3,874.

The South Asian nation's infection tally stands at 25.77 million, with a death toll of 287,122, health ministry data showed.

Describing the virus as 'dhoort' and 'bahurupia' in Hindi, Modi in an interaction with district magistrates (DM) and field officials also underlined concerns expressed in various quarters about the threats it poses to the youth and children.

He asked them to keep a track on it and record the spread of infection and its seriousness among them in their districts.

Modi also said that there is a need to prevent vaccine wastage, saying every dose wasted is denying someone protection shield against the disease.

He also said new challenges call for newer solutions.

In his interaction with the second batch of officers on ways to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, the first was on Tuesday, he asked them to work to rid the rural areas of the infection and talk to villagers to guide them.

He said there is a need to ensure COVID appropriate behaviour even after the number of cases go down.

While the cases have gone down in numbers, the challenge remains as long as the infection remains even at a minor scale, he said The prime minister praised the officials for their efforts in making the good use of existing resources to fight 'the biggest disaster in 100 years'.

The officials, who interacted with Modi via video-conferencing, were from Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh.DST think-tank suggests COVID command centre in each district to manage pandemic in villages.

Meanwhile  a think tank under the Department of Science and Technology (DST) has suggested that a COVID-19 command centre should be established in each district, equipped with necessary infrastructure and manpower to ensure both way information flow between it and villages,

This can help achieve an optimum use of available resources and also usage of data for other scientific purposes, the Technology Information Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC) suggested.

According to TIFAC, all the districts COVID-19 Command Centres should be connected with the State COVID-19 Command Centre, which will be the repository of information of the entire state. Similarly, all state COVID-19 Command Centres will be connected digitally with the Central COVID-19 command centre so that information of all states and villages of India is available centrally.

The entire information should be transferred and stored digitally so that time-series data is available at the central COVID-19 command centre for the whole of India and at the states COVID-19 Command Centre for the entire states.

''A COVID-19 command centre should be established in each district, equipped with necessary infrastructure and manpower to ensure both way information flow between COVID-19 Command Centre and villages. This can help optimum use of available resources and also usage of data for other scientific purposes,'' the DST said.

The COVID -19 surge has become more serious than predicted, spreading faster, particularly during the second wave and penetrating the rural areas as well, it said.