Infected Nagai doc’s patients urged to come for screening

TNN | Apr 13, 2020, 04.22 AM IST

Nagapattinam: The district collector has appealed to the residents of Kadambadi in the town and those who visited a private clinic to come forward voluntarily for a screening, as a doctor who was running a clinic on the locality tested positive for Covid-19 on April 9.

Meanwhile, health department officials have identified 51 people who had visited the clinic and have appealed to the general public to come forward for testing to avoid community spread, collector Pradeep P Nair told reporters on Sunday.

“The government has the norm not to disclose names of the Covid-19 patients. Since, there is no option to identify those who visited his clinic, we are forced to announce the doctor’s name,” he added.

The officials have also given two mobile numbers, Dr Thirumurugan: 9751425002 and Raghavan: 9500493022 to call and convey their details.

A resident of Velippalayam in the town was running Malar Clinic at Azhagar West Street. Retired senior civil surgeon C Kumarappan, 67, who had been consulting patients at the clinic, tested positive for Covid-19. He had been treating his regular patients of Kadambai locality for ordinary ailments.

After developing Covid-19 like symptoms during the first week of April, he approached the government hospital in Nagapattinam on April 7 and swab sample was sent to Tiruvarur Government Medical College Hospital for testing. He has quarantined himself at his home since April 7. As the result came positive, he was taken to Chennai and has been admitted to Apollo Hospitals.

Meanwhile, the total number of Covid-19 positive cases remains 24 as no new cases were reported positive on Sunday in Nagapattinam district.