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Updated April 5th, 2020 at 20:58 IST

Many Tablighi Jamaat returnees from South continue to test positive for COVID-19

Many Tablighi Jamaat returnees from southern states continued to test positive for coronavirus.

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Many Tablighi Jamaat returnees from southern states continued to test positive for coronavirus on Sunday, with Tamil Nadu reporting the bulk of the numbers with 85 such infected persons. Ten Malaysian Jamaat meet attendees were offloaded from a special flight bound for the Asian country here, while a Telangana ophthalmologist was quarantined after he attended a preparatory meeting of the congregation in Nizamuddin West in South Delhi last month. Kerala reported eight fresh cases of COVID-19, four of them with a history of attendance in the religious meet.

In Karnataka, seven new coronavirus cases were confirmed on Sunday, with five of them being Tablighi Jamaat congregation attendees. Nizamuddin West in Delhi has emerged as the epicentre for the spread of coronavirus to different parts of the country after thousands of people took part in an Islamic congregation organised by the Tablighi Jamaat from March 1-15 and returned to their states. In Tamil Nadu, as many as 85 of the 86 cases reported on Sunday were returnees of the Delhi event, taking the total number of cases in the state to 571, trailing behind Maharashtra which tops the list with a total of 690 patients.

The 85 men were attendees of the religious conference, Tamil Nadu Health SecretaryBeela Rajesh said. Of these 571 cases, 522 had attended the Delhi meet, according to government data as of Sunday. Further, 10 Malaysian attendees ofthe congregation were on Sunday offloaded from a special chartered flight to Malaysia from here, officials said. Of the 167 Malaysian Tamils who boarded the flight, 10 persons were offloaded after it was ascertained they had participated in the recent meeting at the national capital, they said. After participating in the meeting, they had visited Tenkasi district in southern Tamil Nadu and had stayed there before arriving in Chennai to leave for Malaysia in the special flight today.

It is, however, not immediately known if the Jamaat participants will be quarantined by health authorities or not. Kerala also reported fresh COVID-19 cases, with four of the total eight having attended the Tablighi event in Delhi. "As of date, 10 people who had returned from Nizammuddin in Delhi have been tested positive," Health Minister K K Shailaja said in a release. In Karnataka, seven new coronavirus cases were reported on Sunday, including five who had attended the Tablighi Jamaat meet. Further, a Telangana government ophthalmologist has been placed under hospital quarantine after he attended a preparatory meeting for the Jamaat congregation, officials said.

The COVID-19 test report of the eye specialist, working at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences at Adilabad, was awaited, they said. The man, also a Jamat functionary and reportedly an organising committee member, had visited Delhi on March 8 and returned to Adilabad two days later, a senior official said. While he did not disclose his Delhi visit, he attended to patients from March 12 to April 1. However, he was not part of the religious congregation, he said. The ophthalmologist's name cropped up when officials were verifying a list of persons vis-a-vis the congregation, following which health authorities were alerted. On their advice, he has been placed in isolation since April 1 and tests were conducted, official sources said. Incidentally, Telangana has seen the most fatalities in the south, with nine of the deceased having had a history of attending the religious meeting at Nizamuddin.

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Published April 5th, 2020 at 20:58 IST

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