COVID-19: Active cases in TN drop below two lakh mark

Recoveries continued to eclipse new infections with 32,049 people recovering on Thursday, taking the total to 20,91,646 leaving 1,88,664 active cases, a medical bulletin said.

Tamil Nadu recorded its highest daily infections tally at 36,184 cases on May 21 and since then it has been witnessing a declining trend.

On May 30, the state saw its daily cases dropping below the 30,000 mark and on June 7 below 20,000.

Three districts constituted the bulk of new cases with Coimbatore adding 2,236 cases, followed by Chennai (1,223) and Erode (1,390).

The state capital, however, leads in the number of total infections among districts with 5,22,052 cases overall.

The number of deaths also remains high in Chennai with 7,658 fatalities till date.

The number of samples tested today was at 1,81,920 pushing the cumulative number of specimens examined so far to 2,94,25,279.

Chengalpet, Nagapattinam, Salem, Thanjavur, Tiruppur, reported new cases each in excess of 500 infections today while the rest was scattered across other districts.

Among the 358 deceased, 79 succumbed to the virus sans any pre-existing illness including a 24-year old woman from Thanjavur due to COVID-19 pneumonia, the bulletin said.

Meanwhile, Health Minister M Subramanian responded to the Centre's advisory to States asking them not to go public on vaccine stocks and noted that people should know the actual status of vaccines in a state.

Talking to reporters here, he said without knowing the vaccine status, there is a possibility that people hoping to get vaccinated may stand in long queues and go home 'empty- handed' after getting to know that there is no availability of vaccines in a district.

''People should know the truth about the availability of vaccines. Currently, Chennai alone has 1,060 doses and of the 37 districts (in Tamil Nadu), 36 districts do not have any vaccines,'' he said.

''The Centre has told us that it will supply 32 lakh doses this month and the first batch comprising six lakh vials will be released this week. We are expecting that it will arrive in two-three days,'' he said.

On Wednesday, the Centre wrote to the states and Union territories, advising them not to share the data of the Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN) system on vaccine stocks and the temperature of vaccine storage at public forums, and stating that it is a ''sensitive information and to be used only for programme improvement''.

Till date, Tamil Nadu has received 1.1 crore doses from the Centre and 97.6 lakh people have been vaccinated, Subramanian said.

On procurement of Amphotericin B medicine to treat people affected by 'Black Fungus' or mucormycosis, he said Tamil Nadu received 9,525 vials and hoped that the supply would be increased gradually by the Centre.

''Chief Minister (M K Stalin) has requested the Union Health Minister (Harsh Vardhan) to supply 30,000 doses of Amphotericin B,'' he said.

Recently, Tamil Nadu allotted Rs 25 crore from the Chief Minister's Public Relief Fund towards procurement of Amphotericin B drug and other medicines, to treat the 'Black Fungus' virus affected patients in the state.