30% Covid-19 cases linked to Tablighi event; 84% in TN, 63% in Delhi: Centre

April 18, 2020
New Delhi: The Union Health Ministry said on Saturday that 4,291 or about 30 per cent of coronavirus cases in the country have been traced to the Tablighi Jamaat religious congregation held in Delhis Nizamuddin area last month, out the total 14,378 cases in India.

In Delhi, 63 per cent of the reported 1,707 cases are linked to the same gathering.

Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary at the Health Ministry, said that 4,291 coronavirus cases are epidemiologically linked to the Nizamuddin Markaz event.

“These cases are spread across 23 states and Union Territories, which include most of the high degree burden cases — Tamil Nadu has 84 per cent cases, Delhi 63 per cent, Assam 91 per cent, Uttar Pradesh 59 per cent, Telangana 79 per cent, Andhra Pradesh 61 per cent and Andaman & Nicobar 83 per cent,” said Agarwal.

Nearly 40,000 people related to the Nizamuddin event have already been quarantined.

The total number of confirmed cases in India is 14,378, while 1,991 have been cured and 480 people have succumbed to the dreaded virus. There are 11,906 active cases in the country.

“If lockdown and social distancing norms are not followed, then the entire country would have to face the consequences,” said Agarwal.

The country in the last 24 hours saw 991 fresh Covid-19 cases and 43 deaths.

“The implementation of the Action Plan is yielding good results in 23 states/UTs across 47 districts. Kodaggu (Karnataka) is a new district that has been added to this list along with Mahe (Puducherry) which has not reported any fresh cases during the last 28 days. Twenty-two new districts in 12 states have not reported any fresh cases during the last 14 days,” added Agarwal.

The 22 districts are — Lakhisarai, Gopalganj, Bhagalpur in Bihar; Dholpur and Udaipur in Rajasthan; Pulwama in J&K; Thoubal in Manipur; Chitradurga in Karnataka; Hoshiarpur in Punjab; Rohtak and CharkhiDadri in Haryana; Lohit in Arunachal Pradesh; Bhardak and Puri in Odisha; Karimganj, Golaghta, Kamrup Rural, Nalbari and South Salmara in Assam; Jalpaiguri and Kalimpong in West Bengal; and Vishakapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.