Tamil Nadu will seek permission from the Union Government to introduce a seven-day home quarantine for all international travellers, including those arriving from non-risk countries, Health Minister Ma. Subramanian said.
Currently, all travellers from 12 countries deemed at-risk are subjected to RT-PCR tests at the international airports in the State. Two per cent of travellers from non-risk countries are randomly tested as per existing guidelines.
The move to seek seven-day home quarantine came after travellers from non-risk countries such as Nigeria and Congo tested positive for COVID-19 on being randomly tested on arrival, and an analysis of the samples lifted from them and their COVID-positive contacts found S-gene dropout, a marker for the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. As of now, Tamil Nadu has one confirmed case of the Omicron variant in a 47-year-old man, who had travelled from Nigeria to Chennai via Doha.
“Nigeria and Congo are not on the list of countries deemed at-risk. But travellers from the two countries were found to have been infected during random testing. So, we will be writing to the Union Government to permit us to bring in an advisory for seven-day home quarantine for all international travellers, including those from non-risk countries, arriving at Chennai, Madurai, Tiruchi or Coimbatore international airports. They would be allowed to move out only if they test negative for COVID-19 after seven days. This is because the transmission of infection is rapid. It has already spread in more than 10 States in the country,” the Minister told reporters on Friday.
‘Continuous monitoring’
The Minister added that if the Union Government permitted the State to bring in seven-day home quarantine for all travellers, they would be continuously monitored and measures would be taken to bring them under institutional quarantine in case they violated the rules.
In the last two weeks, a total of 12,767 travellers from at-risk countries were tested at the international airports in the State. As many as 73,795 travellers had arrived from non-risk countries, of whom 2,101 were tested randomly. “So, in the last two weeks, a total of 14,868 persons were tested. Of them, 70 tested positive for COVID-19 and were admitted to hospitals. On re-test, five of them tested negative and were discharged. As of now, 65 people are admitted to various government hospitals in the State,” he said.
On analysing their samples, S-gene dropout was observed in 28 samples. “All 28 of them were already in hospital isolation. They had mild symptoms of body pain, cold and fever, and none of them required oxygen support or intensive care,” he said.
