4 health dept officials to monitor screening at international airports

Chennai: Tamil Nadu has intensified precautionary measures at all four international airports in the state in the wake of the detection of the new COVID-19 virus variant 'Omicron' in South Africa and has appointed four health department officials to personally monitor the situation, State Minister Ma Subramanian said here on Saturday. These officials would be stationed in Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai and Tiruchirappalli airports, the Minister for Medical and Family Welfare said here.

"The new virus variant Omicron has been detected in five countries -- South Africa, Botswana, Israel, Belgium, Hong Kong (China). Several countries are taking preventive measures to protect themselves from this new age virus.

We too have stepped up preventive measures in a full-fledged manner at international airports (of the State)", he told reporters. As part of this, fouy health department officials were appointed today and they would be present in these airports to monitor the screening measures, he said.

Subramanian, along with health department principal secretary J Radhakrishnan and senior officials, inspected the screening procedures at the airport here on Saturday. "As far as Chennai airport is concerned, passengers arriving from South Africa, Brazil, China, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Israel undergo intense monitoring, including thermal screening. As many as 99 countries have recognized the Covishield and Covaxin vaccines. Verification of their vaccination reports are also done here", he said. Overseas passengers on arrival undergo RT-PCR tests at the airport, he said, adding that from October 21 till date 55,090 people were tested, of whom three were COVID-19 positive.