The Tamil Nadu government is fully prepared to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic, especially in the wake of sudden surge of infections globally, and random screening of international passengers arriving to the state has commenced, State Health Minister Ma Subramanian said on Friday.
Based on the guidelines issued by the Central government, the airport authorities and district health officials have been instructed to coordinate and carry out the sampling and other control measures effectively, he said. Body temperature of all passengers arriving from foreign countries at the four international terminals in Tamil Nadu will be checked and follow up measures would be taken as per the standard treatment protocol.
"Two per cent of the international passengers are being tested randomly for Covid-19 at the 4 international airports in Chennai, Madurai, Tiruchirappalli and Coimbatore from today. Tamil Nadu is fully prepared and the general public have been advised to follow Covid appropriate behaviour," Subramanian said at the virtual meeting of state health ministers chaired by Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya today.
Tamil Nadu, Subramanian said, has been reporting Covid-19 cases below 10 recently and the state's test positivity rate stood at 0.2 per cent. "Daily monitoring of Covid-19 incidence is being carried out and Tamil Nadu is among the few states with Whole Genomic Sequencing facility," he said. All positive samples are being sent for Whole Genomic Sequencing to detect new variants and to take necessary control measures.
He informed that Chief Minister M K Stalin chaired a high-level committee meeting on December 22 and discussed the current pandemic situation and the preparedness, considering the rise in cases in China, South Korea, Japan, Brazil and the USA. At the meeting, the Chief Minister took stock of the availability of drugs, liquid medical oxygen, masks, PPE kits, beds etc., and issued instructions to continue the vigil.
Earlier, speaking to reporters at Thoothukudi, Subramanian said the state has already put in place a mechanism to screen all the passengers at the airports. "The Chief Minister has directed that all passengers arriving from countries where the Corona cases are rapidly increasing to conduct RT-PCR test if they displayed symptoms and treat them as per protocol," he said.
