Only isolated Covid cases in Tamil Nadu: Health minister Ma Subramanian

CHENNAI:  Health Minister Ma Subramanian said that only isolated Covid-19 cases have been reported in the state recently and are only Omicron variants (XBB and BA2). He was speaking after a consultation meeting with health department officials at the Secretariat on Tuesday regarding the rise in Covid-19 cases in the state.

“There are no clusters in the state now. At least 6 to 7 people coming from countries like Kuwait and Singapore are testing positive for Covid-19 in the 2% random samples test at the airports,” said Subramanian.

“The 27-year-old man who died recently in Trichy had been infected with the XBB variant. The state reported 76 Covid-19 cases on Monday,” he said. Speaking about fever camps, the minister said, as of now there are only 15 active H3N2 cases in the state now. In the 23,833 fever camps conducted in the last 10 days, 10.47 lakh people were screened, of which 7,255 fever cases were detected.

“There are adequate beds, medicines and the state also has the facility to store over 2,000 tonnes of oxygen now. The health secretary has also instructed all the medical college hospitals to keep beds and medicines ready,” said Subramanian.

“If needed, the state will again conduct sero-survey to know if there Covid-19 antibodies in the population. Now almost 90% of people have developed Covid-19 antibodies,” Subramanian added.