Tamil Nadu seeks guidelines to test passengers from China

Tamil Nadu has reported 49 new cases in the past week and administered the first dose of preventive vaccine to 97% of the population and second dose to 92% of the people

Director of Public Health T.S. Selvavinayagam on Wednesday wrote to the Union Health Ministry seeking guidelines to mandatorily test international passengers arriving from China and Hong Kong in view of the possible threat of a fresh wave of COVID-19 epidemic there. 

In the letter, he recalled the previous guidelines that included the five-fold strategy of trace, test, treat, vaccinate and adhere to COVID-19 appropriate behaviour. 

The Centre had revised its earlier guidelines and withdrawn the random testing of 2% international passengers as the number of new cases had come down drastically. However, Dr. Selvavinayagam cited information in public domain that said China had reported 430 deaths and over 1.48 lakh cases of COVID-19 infection in the past week, the surge owing to Omicron Variant BF.7. This had been confirmed by the World Health Organisation as well, he added. 

Tamil Nadu had reported 49 new cases in the past week and administered the first dose of preventive vaccine to 97% of the population and second dose to 92% of the people, he said. So far, 12,74,108,322 doses had been administered in the State, the official added.