Two persons who tested positive for COVID-19 infection died, taking the death toll in the State to five, health officials said on Sunday.
Meanwhile, 86 new cases were reported, bringing the total number of cases to 571.
A bulletin from the Health Department said a 71-year-old man from Ramanathapuram, who was admitted to Stanley Government Hospital on Thursday around 9.45 a.m., died two hours later. The results of his blood samples returned positive for COVID-19 infection.
Health Secretary Beela Rajesh told mediapersons that the patient had been under home quarantine and was brought to hospital only after his condition worsened significantly. He died within 90 minutes of reaching the hospital, she said.
On Sunday morning, a 60-year-old man, admitted to the same hospital on April 1, tested positive for the infection and died around 1.45 a.m. “Till yesterday, he was doing fine, but within hours ventilator support was required and it was given. Death occurred within two hours,” Dr. Rajesh added.
All but one of the 86 cases were either people who travelled to Delhi or their contacts did. One person had a travel history to Dubai, the Health Secretary said.
Among the 85 persons who tested positive, four had contact with those who went to Delhi and tested positive. This includes three women from Kanniyakumari, Namakkal and Thoothukudi districts and a man from Thoothukudi.
Chennai with 95 positive cases tops the list of districts with the most positive cases. Among them are seven men. Cases have been reported from Chengalpattu, Tiruvallur, Cuddalore, Kancheepuram, Kanyakumari, Madurai, Namakkal, The Nilgiris, Salem, Tiruvannamalai, Thoothukudi, Ranipet, Tirunelveli, Vellore, Thanjavur, Nagapattinam and Dindigul.
The official said as of Sunday 90,824 passengers were under home quarantine and 127 passengers in the government quarantine facility. A total of 10,814 passengers completed the mandatory 28-day follow-up and so far 4,612 samples were tested. The results of 339 samples were awaited. Eight patients have been discharged so far.
Seven in private hospitals
The official said as many as seven patients, all of them with symptoms, were undergoing treatment in private hospitals. They were, however, not in ICU or on ventilator support. She said as many as 1,246 persons who had attended the conference in Delhi had been traced and isolated and their samples had been sent for testing for the infection.
“The entire focus of the government is to aggressively contain the infection. So far, we have already conducted an active surveillance of 9,22,860 households and a population of 38,88,896 has been covered,” she said.
The Health Department is picking up samples of all persons reporting with severe acute respiratory infection to check for community transmission. “So far we have tested 650 such cases of whom we have not found any unlinked positive history. We have got four positive cases and all these four have travel history or contact history,” she said.
The government also aimed at increasing the number of testing centres in the State. A number of machines had already been ordered and they would be installed very soon, she said.
Dr. Rajesh said it would be possible to assess the exact stage of the disease only after collating information following door-to-door surveillance.
Laboratory technicians had been trained in doing the tests once the machines arrived and ‘high level committees’ were in place to estimate how the disease will pan out and the rate of its spread.
“We have made projections and based on them, we are predicting the worst case scenario. We have been making systematically short-term and long-term plans. We need to be focussed on containment. We have to give active and passive surveillance. Full-fledged containment activity and judicious testing” are of prime importance, she said.