PUDUKKOTTAI: A 42-year-old man from Tamil Nadu who returned from China died of suspected coronavirus infection, at a private hospital at Madurai on Saturday. If confirmed, his could be the first death due to the novel coronavirus-2019 (Covid-19) infection in the country.
Official sources said on Monday that the victim Sakthikumar, who runs a small restaurant in China, recently returned home due to jaundice and underwent treatment in his village. However, due to manpower shortage to run his eatery there, he returned to China recently despite his illness.
Sakthikumar again retu-rned home on February 4 as his health deteriorated and was admitted to a private hospital at Madurai on Friday. He died on Saturday.
Public health department officials suspect that Sakthikumar’s ill health could have been aggravated possibly by the coronavirus attack and are investigating.
Sakthikumar had been missed by the elaborately set-up surveillance system at the airports. Unlike in the case of other China returnees, Sakthikumar had possibly eluded the airport scans, possibly because he said he was suffering from ‘jaundice’.
After his sudden death, public health department officials camped at his village, Kothaimangalam in Pudukkottai district to thoroughly investigate whether Shakthikumar’s death was caused by Covid-19 or was due to other medical factors, sources added.
