MADURAI
Health officials in Madurai are now monitoring 30,000 people who have had contact with eight preachers from Thailand in the wake of COVID-19 outbreak.
The eight preachers are said to have preached to people residing in 6,000 houses across the city. Collector T.G. Vinay said that a majority of the 30,000 people might not have had any direct contact with the Thailand preachers, but they were likely to be classified under ‘primary contact’ category. Around 80 health workers had been deployed to ensure that symptoms associated with the disease were reported immediately. “Most of these houses are in containment zones,” he said.
Even though a majority of the 24 positive cases reported here were asymptomatic, the Collector said, they would not test people unless they had any direct contact with the Thai nationals and displayed symptoms.
As on Wednesday, 3,15,877 people had been home-quarantined, and 2,91,600 of them were below 60 years of age and 24,000 above 60. The Collector said that the officials were also keeping track of people with influenza-like symptoms, including fever and cough.
“Twenty-one people with severe respiratory problems have been admitted to various hospitals in the district. We are monitoring containment zones and have deployed 1,019 employees on the field,” he said.
He said that the number of people home-quarantined after international travel in Madurai had come down from around 6,000 to 2,000 now as their 28-day quarantine period was over.