CHENNAI: The Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine (DPH) has instructed district health officials to test all symptomatic cases, all contacts of those who had tested positive for Covid-19, after the state reported four positive cases of the JN.1 variant of Covid-19 that has led to resurgence of a spike in Covid-19 cases in some countries. Following the state’s first Covid-19 death in five months on Thursday, another person from Tiruvallur has succumbed to the virus on Friday, according to the health department’s daily bulletin.
According to the circular issued by DPH, symptomatic cases - those with cough, fever, sore throat, breathlessness and/or other respiratory symptoms - are to be tested by RT-PCR. Similarly, senior citizens with comorbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, chronic lung or kidney disease, malignancy, immuno-compromised obesity, etc., who got in contact with lab-confirmed positive cases, termed as ‘at-risk contacts’, are to be tested by RT-PCR along with contacts of cluster cases. Moreover, all hospitalised cases of influenza-like illnesses and severe acute respiratory infections are also to be tested.
“Deputy directors of health services are hereby instructed to adhere to the above said guidelines without any deviation,” the circular stated. The guidelines have been issued in an attempt to enable early detection of symptomatic cases and infections in the elderly and to limit the spread of the new JN.1 variant. On Friday, 40 more tested positive for Covid-19, with the number of active cases in the state now at 172.
According to the bulletin, a 36-year-old man with type 2 diabetes was admitted to Saveetha Medical College Hospital in Tiruvallur on December 22, and after seven days of experiencing fever, nausea and breathing difficulties, he passed away on Friday, December 29.