So far, 28 people from both ‘high-risk’ and ‘non-risk’ countries have tested positive. COVID-19 Positive with S-Gene drop, suspicion of being infected with it is increasing omicronTamil Nadu Minister Ma Subramaniam said on Friday.
The Minister of Medical and Family Welfare said that samples of 28 passengers have been sent for genomic sequencing analysis.
Speaking to reporters here, Subramaniam said he would seek the Centre’s approval to conduct mandatory RT-PCR tests on travelers coming from ‘non-risk’ countries on completion of the seven-day home quarantine.
Currently, passengers arriving from ‘high-risk’ countries undergo mandatory RT-PCR testing at the international airport, while the health department conducts RTPCR sampling for 2 per cent of passengers arriving from ‘non-risk’ countries. Is.
The decision to seek Centre’s approval to conduct such sampling upon completion of his home isolation was in the backdrop of the detection of the first case of Omicron after a traveler arriving from Nigeria, a non-risk country.
Subramaniam said that he will write a letter to the Center in this regard stating that passengers should mandatorily undergo RT-PCR test on completion of home isolation and only then they should be allowed to go out in public .
He said so far 14,868 people who had reached Tamil Nadu from both ‘high-risk’ and ‘non-risk’ countries had undergone COVID-19 test, out of which 70 people tested COVID-19 positive and 65 of them. Treatment was going on. Five test negative.
The minister said that a passenger from Nigeria was confirmed with the Omicron variant, 28 passengers, including a passenger from Congo, have been found with the ‘S-gene drop’, raising suspicions of being infected with Omicron. Is.
“Samples of 28 passengers have been sent for genomic sequence analysis. Results of 10 people have been declared, out of which eight have been tested delta version, one Omicron edition (December 15) and the other non-sequel. The sample of the passenger who has been declared as ‘non-sequential’ will be tested again”, he said.
Subramaniam said the health department officials were in the process of conducting RT-PCR tests on 278 people who were contacts of the traveler who was confirmed with the Omicron variant in Tamil Nadu on arrival from Nigeria.
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