A man who travelled to Tamil Nadu from Nigeria and six of his family members, with COVID-19, have been admitted to the King Institute of Preventive Medicine in Chennai, Health Minister Ma. Subramanian said in Tiruchi on Tuesday. The man had landed at the Chennai International Airport two days ago from Nigeria via Doha. He was randomly subjected to the RT-PCR test. The 47-year-old patient was detected with the ‘S’ gene drop out, one of the early indicators of the Omicron variant.
Following this, his six other family members, were subjected to COVID-19 testing. They were also subsequently detected with the ‘S’ gene drop out. Since the preliminary analysis showed the possibility of the Omicron variant, they have been admitted to the King Institute. All of them are asymptomatic.They were under close surveillance, Mr. Subramanian told reporters after visiting the K.A.P. Viswanatham Medical College Hospital.
Mr. Subramanian said the samples had been sent to a laboratory in Bengaluru for genome sequencing tests. The results were expected on Tuesday evening or Wednesday. The State had so far sent samples of 29 other patients to Bengaluru to check for Omicron. Four of them had turned out to be cases of the Delta variant.
The Health Minister said that the State had 79 RT-PCR testing facilities. It had a capacity to screen 1.88 lakh patients a day. Twenty more RT-PCR machines had been procured for district headquarters hospitals and medical college hospitals to ramp up the testing facilities.
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