Tamil Nadu: Doctor who came in contact with COVID-19 patient, baby test positive for coronavirus

A 29-year-old woman doctor, who came in contact with a COVID-19 patient before his infection was confirmed, her 10-month-old baby and two others on Sunday tested positive for coronavirus, in the first case of a medical practitioner being infected with the virus in Tamil Nadu.

The four, including the doctor’s mother and a woman help, are among eight people who tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday. All eight are direct or indirect contact of Thai nationals, currently quarantined at the IRT Perundurai Medical College (IRTPMC) in Erode district, who came to India for a religious conference.

The daily bulletin issued by the Health and Family Welfare Department said the 29-year-old woman, now patient no 43, is a contact of patient 26, who is a co-traveller of the two Thai nationals who are quarantined at IRTPMC.

Officials said the woman, a doctor with the Southern Railways, came in contact with patient 26, a 63-year-old man, who had come for treatment at the Railway Hospital in Erode before she was transferred to Podanur Railway Hospital in Coimbatore on March 23.

The 63-year-old man tested positive for COVID-19 on March 25, while the blood samples of two Thai nationals were rendered positive on March 21. The doctor did not treat anyone at the Podanur hospital as she developed a fever and reported sick immediately after joining on March 23. The latter has been closed for the public for the past few days.

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“The 29-year-old woman patient is a doctor and she is an (indirect) contact of the Thai nationals,” Health Secretary Dr. Beela Rajesh confirmed. This is the first case of a doctor contracting COVID-19 while coming in contact with positive patients in Tamil Nadu.

The fresh cases take the total tally in the state to 50 including four patients who have left hospitals after recovery and one person who passed away last week. The remaining four who tested positive on Sunday are also contacts of the Thai nationals who had attended a religious conference in New Delhi and are currently quarantined at the IRT Medical College in Perundurai.

The Thai nationals, who came to Tamil Nadu on March 11, have directly/indirectly infected 14 patients so far. The first person to have lost his life to COVID-19 in Tamil Nadu is also a contact of the Thai nationals.

Even as the fresh cases led to cause for worry, there was hope as well – two patients, who returned from the US, were discharged taking the number of those recovering from the illness in the state to 4.

“All eight new patients are contacts of the two Thai nationals and their group who have already tested positive and are at the government hospital in Perundurai. These new patients are their contacts and they were under quarantine and now that they have tested positive, treatment has started,” Dr. Beela Rajesh said.

She said 43,538 people who returned from abroad are under home quarantine for 28 days, while 79 asymptomatic passengers from highly affected countries are being quarantined in quarantine facilities near airport and 295 are under hospital isolation.

“Till now 1,763 samples have tested, while samples of 1,674 passengers are processed of which 1,624 samples are negative, 50 samples are positive for COVID-19 infection and 89 samples are under process,” an update from the Health Department on Sunday evening said.

The fresh cases came on a day the government carried out a massive containment plan to prevent further outbreak of COVID-19. It demarcated an 8 km zone in the radius of the locality where positive patients lived before being shifted to hospitals.

Health workers went go door-to-door in the containment and buffer zones and checked for people with symptoms of cold and fever and provided them with masks. Meanwhile, the government said three people, who died after being quarantined at the isolation ward of Kanyakumari Government Medical College Hospital on Saturday, have tested negative for COVID-19.