Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian Friday urged people not to panic about reports of a spike in Covid-19 cases in neighbouring Kerala.
Addressing reporters in Chennai, Subramanian said island country Singapore and Kerala have been experiencing a surge in Covid-19 cases owing to new variants.
“On Thursday, the infections in Kerala rose to 230 and there are 1,104 active cases still there. The director of public health and preventive medicine here has been in touch with public health authorities in Kerala and when he enquired them about the impact of the virus, they informed him that the severity has been mild. I also checked with doctors and friends in Singapore, and they informed me that… the impact of this virus with symptoms such as cough, cold, and sore throat might last for three to four days,” he said.
Subramanian claimed there was nothing to panic and he added that Chief Minister MK Stalin has upgraded the medical infrastructure in the state.
“About 331 RT-PCR testing facilities (including 78 government and 253 private) are there in the state. Since the virus is spreading in Kerala, we have instructed health officials to carry out RT-PCR tests wherever there are multiple cases of fever in Tamil Nadu. A total of 264 sample tests were carried out yesterday and among them, eight people were found to be infected with Covid-19… so there is no need to panic. Among the eight cases, two belong to Chennai,” the minister said.
Subramanian stated they have sent Covid-19 samples to the laboratory to identify the variant and they will inform the public about the findings after receiving a report in four to five days.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd