Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government on Thursday said 78 people who had arrived from coronavirus-hit China were under "house quarantine" and being monitored but asserted no positive case of the deadly virus has been detected in the state so far. State Health and Family Welfare Minister C. Vijayabaskar also said there was no need for any panic as preventive measures had been put in place and the government was paying more attention after one person tested positive for the virus in neighbouring Kerala.

As of date, 78 people who had arrived from China were under government monitoring, he said. "Public Health Department doctors are in touch with all the 78 on a daily basis. Nobody is affected, none of them is in a hospital. They are in their homes. They are in house quarantine," the Minister told reporters here. "So far there is no positive case of coronavirus in Tamil Nadu," Vijayabaskar said. He stressed on personal hygiene and adviced people to wash their hands multiple times daily. Responding to a question on the status of some Tamil Nadu medicos studying in China's Wuhan city, the epicentre of the virus, he said the Chinese Embassy has informed the state government that they were safe.

"We are taking all follow-up action to ensure their wellbeing," he added. The novel coronavirus epidemic death toll in China has touched 170 with over 7,000 others being infected while it spread to at least 17 countries.

As a precautionary measure in the backdrop of coronavirus outbreak in China, a special ward was set up at the Government Rajaji Hospital here on Wednesday, authorities said. The ward will have eight beds while two lung specialists, two PG students and general physicians would be part of a team that would be in-charge of it.

The ward has been set up as a precautionary measure at the hospital, they said. Thermal screening of passengers arriving from China is being carried out at various airports across the country as part of precautionary measures and hundreds of people remain under observation in many states though there was no detection of novel coronavirus case. So far in Tamil Nadu, eight people have been advised against mingling with public for 28 days after they arrived from China at the Coimbatore airport. However, none of them showed any symptoms of the virus that has so far claimed 132 lives in China.





This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

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