With S-gene drop cases up, Tamil Nadu lab report to be final

With more cases of international passengers testing positive and S-gene drop being reported, it is a long wait for the State health department officials for reports from the National Institute of Virology or InStem Laboratory, Bengaluru. For this reason, the test results by the State Public Health Laboratory (SPHL) shall henceforth be considered as the final report after whole genomic sequencing to conclude the variant in the samples.

Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan said the whole genomic sequencing report for over 49 samples are awaited as they reported the presence of S-gene drop. “With Omicron cases and suspected cases rising in all the States each day, the whole genomic sequencing reports by the SPHL will be the authorised report to be considered for the detection of the variant. This shall be done in the next couple of days,” he said.

The number of international passengers who tested positive for COVID-19 crossed 100 and about 101 passengers have tested positive for COVID-19, of which 22 of them have successfully recovered and have been discharged from the hospital.

A total of 39 international passengers tested positive for COVID-19 on day one, while 41 tested positive upon retesting on day eight. Meanwhile, 21 contacts of these passengers tested positive for COVID-19. There are 79 patients undergoing treatment for COVID-19 in hospitals, including 68 in government hospitals and 11 in private facilities.

The Health Secretary said 2,431 contacts and extended contacts of these passengers were tested positive, which included 65 close contacts and 2,367 extended contacts. Of these, 16 close contacts and five extended contacts tested positive for COVID-19.

Currently, 13 genomic sequencing reports have been received so far, which included one Omicron case, eight Delta variant cases and 4 non-sequence cases.