It looks like the Tablighi Jamaat conference held in Delhi in the third week of March is the main reason for the spread of Coronavirus across the country and Andhra Pradesh is no exception.
Officials, who attended a review meeting held by YSR Congress party president and chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy on Friday, revealed that out of 161 positive cases proved so far, 140 cases were of those who had attended Markaz of Tablighi Jamaat in Nizamuddin.
An official release from the health department said as many as 1085 persons from Andhra Pradesh had attended the Nizamuddin meeting. Out of these 1085, the department has so far identified 946 people and of them, tests had been conducted on 881 persons till now.
While 108 of them tested positive, results of 65 persons were still awaited and the remaining had tested negative.
Apart from these 946 persons who had been to Nizamuddin meeting, another 616 persons were found to have got in touch with them. Among them, 32 persons tested positive and results of another 335 persons were still awaited, the officials said.
The first death that was reported in the state on Friday, that of a 55-year old man four days ago, was also linked to the Tablighi Jamaat meeting.
The man was declared dead at Vijayawada government hospital on March 30 within an hour of his admission in the hospital with multiple disorders like hypertension, diabetes and heart ailment. But it was only on Friday that the doctors revealed he had died of Covid-19.
Inquiries revealed that the deceased’s son had returned from Delhi on March 17 after attending the Tablighi Jamaat conference. The son was also immediately admitted into the hospital and he tested positive on March 31.
“As many as 29 persons who got in touch with this man were also quarantined and tests have been conducted on them,” the bulletin said, adding that the flight details of his son have also been shared with the Central government.
