22 Tamil Nadu doctors have died of coronavirus so far

TN unit of IMA differs with its parent body, which claimed that 43 docs succumbed 
Thermal scan being done at a fever camp by doctors and corporation officials at  T Nagar in Chennai (Photo | Ashwin Prasath, EPS)
Thermal scan being done at a fever camp by doctors and corporation officials at T Nagar in Chennai (Photo | Ashwin Prasath, EPS)

CHENNAI: A day after the Indian Medical Association (IMA) shot off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a list of doctors who succumbed to Covid-19 across the country, the Tamil Nadu unit of the IMA differed with the parent organisation’s death count.

The list sent by the IMA to PM Modi stated that as many as 43 doctors in Tamil Nadu had died due to the viral infection. President of Tamil Nadu branch of the IMA, Dr N Raja, said, “We have documents to say that only 22 doctors from Tamil Nadu have died of Covid- 19 and the national IMA list is being verified. We submitted the documents for 22 deaths to the government and we are working on the remaining.”
Speaking to Express, Dr Rajan Sharma, the national president of IMA, said the purpose of releasing the data was not to find a fault with the governments.

“It was released to express our concern on doctors losing their lives to Covid and also to get claims for the deceased doctors’ families. If the State government or State IMA has an issue with the data, let them verify the data for themselves. Only Tamil Nadu has objected to the data when other States have accepted it.”
Meanwhile, the State reported 5,994 new Covid-19 cases and 119 deaths, including that of an 11-year-old boy, taking the tally to 2,96,901 and the toll to 4,927 on Sunday. Chennai recorded fewer than 1,000 cases for the third consecutive day with 989 people testing positive for the infection.

The State tested a whopping 70,186 samples and 68,179 people, taking the total number of samples tested to 32,25,805 and people tested to 31,09,708. Two transgender persons were among the new cases on the day. According to the bulletin issued by the Directorate of Public Health, Chennai’s neighbouring districts Chengalpattu recorded 397 cases, Kancheepuram 393 and Tiruvallur 396 cases.

Among the 119 deaths reported on Sunday, 16 didn’t have comorbidities. As per the bulletin, people who died without comorbidities were admitted to hospital at least with three days of fever and breathing difficulty. Viral pneumonia was a common cause behind most of these deaths. An 11-year-old boy from Virudhunagar who was admitted in Government Rajaji Hospital, Madurai, on August 3 was among the victims. The patient died on August 7 due to Covid 19 and Acute T Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia, the bulletin said.

Related Stories

No stories found.
The New Indian Express
www.newindianexpress.com