A preliminary analysis has found that the samples of six travellers from abroad, who had tested positive for COVID-19 on arrival in Tamil Nadu, were of the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2. These samples have been sent to InStem, Bengaluru for confirmation, Health Minister Ma. Subramanian said.
“No case of the new COVID-19 variant Omicron has been detected so far in Tamil Nadu,” he told the media after inaugurating a special ward at the Government Omandurar Medical College Hospital on Monday.
Of the six persons, four were in isolation at the Government Corona Hospital, Guindy, in Chennai. The remaining two were admitted to hospitals in Nagercoil. A seventh traveller, who had initially tested positive for COVID-19 on arrival, was advised to stay in home isolation in Kumbakonam after the sample returned negative for the infection.
“Our initial finding is that the six samples were of the Delta variant. We have sent the samples to InStem, Bengaluru for confirmation. The results will be available in two days,” the Minister said.
In the wake of the emergence of the Omicron variant, all government hospitals and government medical college hospitals in the State were setting up special wards with 50 to 150 beds each. Currently, travellers from 11 ‘at-risk’ countries were being strictly monitored at the international airports in the State. In the last one week, 28 flights from ‘at-risk’ countries and 142 flights from ‘non-risk’ countries had arrived in the State. So far, 5,249 people from ‘at-risk’ countries had been subjected to RT-PCR tests, while 609 from ‘non-risk’ countries had been randomly screened.
“In total, 5,858 people have been tested in the State. Of them, seven tested positive for COVID-19 on arrival,” the Minister said.
Health Secretary J. Radhakrishnan, Director of Medical Education R. Narayana Babu and dean of the Government Omandurar Medical College Hospital R. Jayanthi were present.
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