Tamil Nadu lost a second patient to COVID-19 on Saturday morning as a 51-year-old man who was undergoing treatment for coronavirus died at Villupuram Government Hospital.
According to a press release by the Department of Health and Family Welfare, Tamil Nadu on Saturday, the man was undergoing treatment at the Villupuram Government Hospital and had attended the Tablighi Jamaat conference in Delhi recently. The man had tested positive for COVID-19 on March 31 and had been under treatment since then.
This marks the second death in the state due to coronavirus. Earlier, a 54-year-old man (Patient 12 in Tamil Nadu) who had tested positive for COVID-19 and was undergoing treatment at the Madurai Rajaji Government hospital had died in the wee hours of March 25. The state health department had stated that the patient had other health issues like diabetes and hypertension.
The Tablighi Jamaat conference in Delhi has turned out to be the new epicentre of the pandemic in the country. Around 1200 persons from Tamil Nadu who attended the meeting have been identified by the government of Tamil Nadu as on Friday, according to the state health secretary Dr Beela Rajesh.
She also revealed that 364 patients out of the total 411 patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 had some link with the Jamaat conference in Delhi. The first links of the conference came out in the open in Tamil Nadu when two citizens of Thailand had tested positive for the infection on March 21 in Erode. Since then, as many as 360 patients have been confirmed to have coronavirus infection and many more have been placed under isolation in their own houses and in hospitals across the state.
As of Friday evening, six people have recovered and two patients have died due to COVID-19 in the state.