Tamil Nadu recorded its highest ever single-day rise in the number of persons testing positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday: a total of 57 persons tested positive, taking the total tally to 124.
Of them, 50 — all men — had travelled to Nizamuddin in Delhi to take part in a conference in March. Twenty-two of them were from Tirunelveli; 18 from Namakkal district (12 from Namakkal, one from Paramathi Velur and five from Rasipuram); three from Villupuram; two from Madurai; four from Kanniyakumari and one from Thoothukudi.
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All patients are undergoing treatment in isolation wards of government medical college hospitals.
The Health Department has traced 515 of the 1,131 persons, who returned after the conference in Nizamuddin, to various districts of the State.
Health Secretary Beela Rajesh made an appeal to the remaining persons to come forward and report to officials so that they could be quarantined, thereby preventing transmission to their family members and the community.
“If we identify them [people who returned from Delhi after attending a conference] and isolate them and cordon off the area, further spread in Tamil Nadu can be prevented,” Chief Secretary K. Shanmugam told reporters. He also said some of those who returned had either switched off their phones or left for some other location.
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Dr. Rajesh said many of them returned to the State by flights and trains, while some of them visited other States and returned by road.
“Intensive containment plans were rolled out in all areas, where the persons, who had returned from Nizamuddin and tested positive, resided. We are tracing the contacts of all 515 persons, and have cordoned off the localities. We are in the process of involving the police in tracing the others. This is why we have requested those who had attended the conference to come forward. Even if they have travelled to some other State, they can inform us,” Dr. Rajesh added.
Other seven patients
Among the remaining seven patients, four were from Chennai, and were admitted in Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH) and private hospitals. A 43-year-old man, a resident of Pozhichalur with travel history to Trivandrum, tested positive and is admitted to RGGGH. He is a family contact of a previously positive patient, 73-year-old woman of Pammal, who had no travel history.
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A 28-year-old co-worker of another earlier patient, a 25-year-old woman who worked in a shopping mall in Chennai, has also tested positive. He is admitted to Government Medical College Hospital, Tiruvannamalai.
A 35-year-old man from Kanyakumari also tested positive and is admitted to the Government Medical College Hospital, Kanyakumari.
The number of persons under hospital isolation increased from 364 on Monday to 630 on Tuesday. A total of 2,354 samples were lifted for testing so far. As of now, 77,330 persons including those who had arrived at airports, and in trains, persons with travel history identified during door-to-door surveillance are under home quarantine.
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The State got the approval from the Union Health Ministry for establishing more testing facilities - Government Stanley Medical College Hospital, Microbiology Lab, Veerakeralam Road, Coimbatore and YRG Care, Chennai. With this, TN has 11 testing facilities in the government sector and six laboratories in the private sector for COVID-19 testing.
Meanwhile, the Greater Chennai Corporation appealed to those who visited the Visa Application Centre in Good Shepherd Building on Kodambakkam High Road in Chennai on March 15 to “home quarantine and isolate” themselves as one person who was there on that day has tested positive for COVID-19.
Published - March 31, 2020 11:55 pm IST
