Two more die in TN; total toll 8, cases 690

Pushpa.Narayan@timesgroup.com

Chennai:08.04.2020

Two more people died on Tuesday taking Tamil Nadu’s Covid-19 toll to eight while the number of positive cases rose by 69 to 690 (637 of Tablighi Jamaat cluster).

The state health department is yet to determine the travel or contact history of the two casualties: a 64-year-old woman in Chennai and a 45-year-old man in Vellore.

Health secretary Beela Rajesh told reporters that while the woman from Royapuram had died on Monday at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, the announcement was made on Tuesday after her samples tested positive. In the evening, an idli seller outside the Christian Medical College, who had been hospitalized for severe respiratory distress caused by Covid-19, passed away.

In the last two days, three patients admitted to hospitals —two in RGGH and one in Vellore — with severe acute respiratory syndrome have died within a few hours of admission. The 45-year-old patient was admitted to the intensive care unit of CMC Vellore and was put on ventilator on Monday. “We don’t know if the patient was in an isolation unit. They have told us he was in a cubicle inside the ICU. He died on Tuesday at around 6pm following respiratory arrest,” the Vellore collector said.

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Experts revising protocol to prevent deaths

Public health authorities said they did know the travel history of the 64-year-old woman either yet. Rajiv Gandhi Government General dean Dr R Jayanthi said the woman who had fever and cough for the last four days came in with breathing difficulty on Monday around 1.15pm. “We first gave her high flow oxygen and quickly stepped up care. She was intubated and her samples were sent for Covid19 test. Doctors pronounced her dead by 2.45pm,” she said Expert committees are working to revise treatment protocols to prevent of deaths.“An expert committee comprising private and government doctors went into case sheets to revise the treatment protocols so deaths can be prevented,” she said. All people who are showing symptoms of the disease, particularly in containment areas, are isolated and tested, she said. Once rapid testing kits arrive, the state will use them for mass screening in hotspots, she added. State has added two more testing centres including the state-run medical college hospital in Erode. The state now has 19 testing centres including 12 in government, she said.

Four doctors have tested positive across the state so far and a senior neurosurgeon in Chennai is in isolation, with test results awaited.

The hospital where the neurosurgeon saw patients has been shut and all staff quarantined. One doctor has been posted at the hospital to lone after a lone patient, who suffers from cancer and was not in a condition to be shifted.

A woman doctor in Erode has recovered as has her 10-month-old. Of the other three, one has a clinic in West Mambalam. The other two are a doctor couple linked to the Tablighi Jamaat cluster.