Three nasal and throat swabs, besides blood samples, which were sent for testing to the King Institute of Preventive Medicine, have returned negative for COVID-19.
The Health department has lifted samples from two more persons, officials said. With this, a total of 54 samples have returned negative for COVID-19.
According to the bulletin issued by the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine on Thursday, five persons are under hospital quarantine and 1,243 are under home quarantine.
K. Kolandaswamy, director of public health and preventive medicine, said two persons were under observation at the isolation ward of Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, while a family of three was under observation at Tiruchi government medical college hospital. “The results of two more samples are awaited,” he added.
All passengers from all international flights are being screened in the airports at Chennai, Tiruchi, Madurai and Coimbatore. A total of 1,00,111 passengers were screened till date.
To enable screening of passengers of all international fights, the Health Department has scaled up the number of medical and paramedical personnel at the Chennai airport, Health Secretary Beela Rajesh said.
“We have increased the number of doctors, staff nurses and health inspectors to carry out screening. There are a total of 75 persons on duty at the Chennai airport. We visited the airport and saw the arrangements made,” she said.