MADURAI: The 25-year-old elder son of the man from Anna Nagar who died of COVID-19 tested positive here on Monday. This increases the number of active COVID-19 cases at the Government Rajaji Hospital to four.
The other three include the wife (44) and the younger son (22) of the deceased who tested positive on March 27 and a 60-year-old man from Rajapalayam in Virudhunagar who tested positive on March 28.
While the family members of the deceased man are asymptomatic, the Rajapalayam man has comorbid conditions of hypertension and diabetes with symptoms of high grade fever, said sources.
Despite the initial swab test result of the elder son being negative, repeated tests were made as the results of some swab tests were inconclusive, the sources added.
The 54-year-old man from Anna Nagar died of coronavirus infection during the wee hours of March 25. Following the incident, around 200 contacts of the deceased man were home quarantined and are being monitored by the interdepartmental team. The primary contacts were isolated in the GRH isolation ward. However, the source from whom the deceased man contracted the infection is still a mystery.
On Saturday, a street in Vandiyur in which a relative of the deceased man is residing was completely sealed by the interdepartmental team monitoring home quarantines in the city. Eight mosques in the city said to have been visited by the deceased man have also been disinfected completely by the team of workers from the corporation and fire service.
Meanwhile, unlike earlier reports which said the number of Thai nationals secured near Malaipatti in Alanganallur on March 25 was eight, officials clarified that there were nine Thai nationals in all. They were quarantined in an undisclosed place near Thoppur on the same day.
While two of the Thai nationals developed symptoms of COVID-19 on March 26, they were taken to GRH and samples of all nine were sent for swab tests. However, the results of all turned negative. As a precautionary measure, two Thai nationals are in the isolation ward at GRH and the other seven are quarantined near Thoppur, sources said.
Samples for swab tests are being taken only from those patients with Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) in GRH. However, the Rajapalayam patient had no such symptoms. "The swab tests were taken from the patient based on the radiological findings that showed that the patient had viral pneumonia," the sources added.