Tamil Nadu to step up monitoring after two more Covid-19 deaths reported
Pudukottai/Chennai: Tamil Nadu Health authorities on Tuesday decided to include more "monitoring and treatment protocols" in treating Covid-19 patients to help reduce the mortality rate, as two more patients died taking the total death toll to eight.
Meanwhile, the total positive cases for the virus jumped by 69 to touch 690 by Tuesday evening.
Though the Covid-19 mortality rate in Tamil Nadu continues to be mercifully low, the successive deaths of patients within a few hours of admittance to hospitals in the last couple of days has prompted the government to tighten its "audit of the deaths", as State Health secretary, Dr Beela Rajesh put it at a news conference.
A committee already set up for the purpose discussed with government and private doctors today through video-conferencing, wherein they "discussed increasing the monitoring and treatment protocols of patients who test positive" as part of the steps to further reduce the mortality rate.
She explained that yesterday’s death was that of a 64-year-old woman who was admitted to the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, but she was already suffering from diabetes and hyper-tension.
Of the new 69 patients who tested positive for the virus yesterday, she said 63 was again from a 'single source' (Delhi Tablighi Jamaat meet returnees).
Another death was reported from Vellore late on Tuesday night, the patient being one Sadhiq Basha (45), who was admitted to CMC but passed away today. The man is a resident of Saidapet in Chennai and his blood sample tested positive for the virus. This is the first corona death in Vellore district.
There was some relief in the news from the Pudukkottai district collector B Uma Maheswari who said that the blood samples of all the 15 suspected coronavirus cases (of people who returned from the Delhi meet) turned out to be negative. However, they would continue to be under home quarantine and under continuous monitoring by health personnel.
Dr Beela Rajesh, to a question, admitted that testing each and every individual was not practically possible; hence the government's repeated emphasis on social distancing and aggressively implementing its 'Containment Plan (CP)' which has now been extended to 34 of the 37 districts in Tamil Nadu.
Under the CP so far, about 15 lakh households have been surveyed and a population of 53 lakh screened for virus symptoms.
On the release of bodies of fatal cases even before the blood test results were received as seen in the Keelakarai case, Dr Beela Rajesh said now clear guidelines have been given to all hospitals to release the bodies only after the blood samples test reports were received.
The Health secretary said two more testing labs were added today including one at the IRT Government hospital at Perundurai in Erode district and till date a total of 5,305 samples have been tested.
Out of the 1,630 samples taken from a single travel source for testing, she said as on date 636 have tested positive, 961 tested negative for the virus and 33 samples were under process. Still more people were coming to declare themselves voluntarily, she noted.
While the acquisition of more test kits was progressing well, Dr Beela Rajesh said micro-plans have been worked out to operationalise the 'rapid testing kits' which were underway and how to get the microbiologists and lab technicians synchronise the whole effort to increase the rate of testing.
"We have even done a GIS mapping up to the house, street level with the help of Anna University to help implement the rapid testing," she added.
