Chennai, Jun 29 (IANS): The Tamil Nadu health department will open special Covid care centres and wards and upgrade the existing clinics at medical college hospitals for people who have recovered from Covid-19.

Even as 97 per cent people who have tested positive for the infection are discharged from the state registry, many people are yet to recover fully from the disease or rather are having post-Covid complications.

Doctors who are in the Covid wards have given reports to the state health department that patients who recover from the disease are showing residual symptoms such as pain and fatigue even weeks after recovery.

State Health Secretary J. Radhakrishnan while speaking to reporters in Chennai said that some people develop chronic conditions such as diabetes or diseases of the lung.

He said that this may require long-term care.

Narayanaswamy, Director, Government Covid Hospital, which is a 600-bed exclusive facility in the King Institute campus in Guindy told IANS, "Post-Covid complications will be one of the biggest health problems and we have to ensure that the patients who recover from Covid have access to quality health care after recovery."

The Tamil Nadu health department has also upgraded the services of post-Covid clinics across all medical colleges of the state.

The Health Secretary said that the government has posted diabetologists, cardiologists, pulmonologists and neurologists posted in the clinics and said that there are rehabitilation wards in hospitals where physiotherapy is conducted.