Chennai, Jul 27 (IANS): Tamil Nadu health minister, Ma Subramanian has directed the state health department to immediately start micromanaging operations in the 11 districts of the state that have detected slight increase in fresh Covid cases.

The minister has already directed the state health secretary, Dr Radhakrishnan, to immediately take action and a high-level meeting of district administrators, health officials, revenue and police officials will be held online on Tuesday to take the stock of the situation in these 11 districts.

While Tenkasi, Thanjavur, and Villupuram were reporting a marginal increase since the past three days and the government is launching special drives at these places to curb the rise of fresh Covid cases.

However, Tamil Nadu as a whole reported fall in fresh Covid cases and the total number on Monday was 1,785 while it was 1,808 on Sunday. Except for Coimbatore (164), Chennai (122), Thanjavur (103), Erode (127) and Salem (102), all other districts reported fewer than 100 fresh cases. This, according to the health officials is a good signal and that the number of cases is declining.

Subramanian told IANS, "It is indeed worrisome that some districts are reporting fresh cases while the rest of the state is showing drop in cases. A high-level virtual meet will be conducted and strategies will be adopted for micro level management in these districts so that things don't turn worse."

Tamil Nadu has been in the forefront of increasing the volume of testing as well as increase in vaccinations against Covid-19. The vaccine awareness programmes, produced by the health department roping in Tamil actors and celebrity cricketers and widely circulated through social media platforms, have tuned into a major hit leading to a reduction in hesitancy factor for the people. A large number of people including tribal population had been vaccinated in the state following the awareness programmes as hesitancy was rampant among the rural population at the time of the commencement of the vaccination drive.

The state government has also knocked on the doors of the central government to immediately replenish the vaccine stocks as soon as it gets exhausted. In several areas of Coimbatore and Erode, there were protests from the people for not getting the required vaccines even after standing in overnight queues. This showed the drive of the state health department has been successful, the minister said.