Chennai: COVID facilities not in use to be cleaned and kept ready

Talking about the availability of drugs, Drug Controller K Sivabalan said Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation is getting a direct account of the required drugs and procurement is being done without the involvement of any private medical representatives so that there is no black marketing involved.

“There is no major demand for any of the drugs currently and regular procurement is being done. Since the procurement from State health ministry is also streamlined, there will be no insufficiency,” said Sivabalan.

S Raju, an official from the State Public Health Laboratory (SPHL) said they have about 317 laboratories in the State and 69 of them are government facilities. About 70 per cent tests are being done in government labs. We can do about 3.2 lakh tests daily and about 1 lakh are being done now.

Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan said the health department has instructed district officials to conduct inspections to ensure that the facilities are ready and ramping up of infrastructure can be done on short notice. Our main concern is negligence by the public. It’s too early to conclude that the severity of the Omicron variant might not be as high as the delta variant. Thus, people must follow COVID-appropriate behaviour and gatherings have to be prevented, irrespective of relaxations,” said the Health Secretary.