Chennai: Three persons onboard a ship which docked at the Chennai harbour yesterday are suspected to have symptoms of coronavirus.
According to police, the ship had started from China 40 days ago. It reached the city yesterday. Three persons have fever. It is not confirmed if it is coronavirus or not.
Meanwhile, the death toll from the coronavirus epidemic in China crossed the 2,000-mark today with the death of 136 more people, while the overall confirmed cases climbed to 74,185, authorities said.
The National Health Commission said in its daily report that 2,004 people had died of the disease known as COVID-19. NHC said 1,749 new cases of novel coronavirus infection have been confirmed.
Of the new deaths, 132 were reported from the worst-hit Hubei Province and one each from Heilongjiang, Shandong, Guangdong and Guizhou.
Another 1,185 new suspected cases have been reported. On Tuesday, 236 patients became seriously ill, while 1,824 people were discharged from hospital after recovery.
The commission added that 11,977 patients remained in severe condition, and 5,248 people were suspected of being infected with the virus, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.