New strain of Covid not severe, TN is prepared, says Ma Su

CHENNAI: Health Minister Ma Subramanian inspected a mock drill on Covid treatment and preparedness at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital on Monday. The mock drill is being conducted at all government hospitals and primary health centers across the State.

The model training to healthcare workers and treatment to be provided to Covid patients has also been given in all medical establishments including primary health centres, district headquarters government hospitals, and medical college hospitals.

The Health Minister said that the district Collectors of the respective districts will participate in the model training in the hospitals in Tamil Nadu. A similar exercise was conducted on December 26, 2022. "At least 5,880 people have been affected in the last 24 hours in the country, of which 1,801 people in Kerala, 788 people in Maharashtra and 699 people in Delhi are affected. As many as 369 people have been affected in Tamil Nadu, most of whom are recovering well and self-isolating at home as prescribed by doctors. The hospitalizations are very rare and the severity of the strain is low, which is why hospitalisation or oxygen supply is not required in most patients," he said.

He added that the need for intensive care was more in the second wave and it declined in the third wave. The current surge is due to another variant of Omicron and the mock drill be held for two days. During the mock drill, oxygen bed facilities, oxygen reserves, medical personnel, laboratory tests, facilities required for treatment, stocks of medicines, protective suits, number of emergency vehicles etc. will be examined through this exercise and measures will be taken to ensure adequate availability.

Currently, 64,281 beds are available, including 33,664 oxygen beds, 7,797 intensive care beds, and 24,061 oxygen concentrators are on standby. At least 130 oxygen storage tanks are ready and a storage capacity of 20,657 metric tons liquid oxygen is available. The RT-PCR Testing is being done at 78 government centers and 264 private centres, that has the facilities to test 3 lakh people per day. Currently, steps are being taken to increase the number of tests being conducted in the State. As of now, there are no cluster cases but only individual cases.

Talking about the Influenza cases, he said 1,586 camps were conducted to identify fever cases and 53,285 camps were conducted in schools. Out of this 11,159 people were diagnosed with fever and all of them have recovered well and Influenza cases have dropped now. Additionally, 5,500 vaccines have been procured by the Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation (TNMSC) and the work of vaccinating the frontline workers is underway as they are at a high risk of infection.

(With inputs from Bureau)