New Delhi: Alerting the people amid a recent surge in Covid cases across the globe, Tamil Nadu health minister Ma Subramanian said that vaccination is the only way to curb the fourth wave.
Speaking to IANS reporters at the Tuticorin airport, Subramanian said, “IIT Kanpur has stated that the fourth wave is likely to hit after June and we cannot rubbish anything. Cases are on the rise globally.”
The minister said that although Tamil Nadu has been logging less than 100 daily cases and zero deaths over the last few days, neighbouring Kerala recorded 847 fresh cases on Saturday.
The number of people who have taken the second dose of the vaccine is less in Tuticorin, Kanniyakumari, and Tirunelveli districts, the minister said, adding that the health department and the state government are reviewing the reasons for the drop.
Urging the people to remain cautious, Subramanian said that South Korea has been reporting four-lakh daily Covid cases among Asian countries while UK and the US have also reported a daily case spike.
The Minister also said that Tamil Nadu has been working closely with the Centre in extending help to medical students who have returned from Ukraine for their further studies. He said that while counselling, the students who had returned from Ukraine have shown preference for Poland to pursue their education as the syllabus is similar to that of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu health department issued a statement saying that the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron has been identified in 18.4 per cent of the samples sequenced in the state from January to March this year.
The health department also said that genome sequencing showed Omicron to be the dominant strain in the southern state. According to the Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) at the State Public Health Laboratory, 93 per cent of the 496 variants sequenced in the state were Omicron and 6.6 per cent were Delta.
While speaking to IANS, Tamil Nadu health secretary, J. Radhakrishnan, said, “The Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) data was not meant to create any panic among the people. This is however to sensitise the people about the BA.2 variant.”
He also said that Tamil Nadu did not have much clinical difference between the two variants and said that people need to remain cautious as over the last week, several countries have recorded a rise in Covid cases.
Notably, the BA.2 sub-variant has been driving the Covid-19 surge in the UK of late. The genomic analysis on the Tamil Nadu samples also found that the sub-variant BA.1.1 was identified in 43 per cent while the BA.1 sub-variant was found in 37.3 per cent of those tested.