DMK MLA Anbazhagan dies of COVD-19 in Chennai

Chennai, June 10: DMK MLA J Anbazhagan died on Wednesday morning due to coronavirus, on his 62nd birthday. The senior DMK leader breathed his last at the Dr Rela Institute and Medical Centre in the city.

The senior DMK leader "who has been fighting for his life with severe COVID-19 pneumonia rapidly deteriorated early this morning. In spite of full medical support, including mechanical ventilation at our COVID-19 facility, he succumbed to his illness," Dr Rela Institute and Medical Centre said in a statement condoling his death.

Anbazhagan, who had comorbidities including chronic kidney disease was put on ventilator support on June 3 -a day after his admission- as his respiratory distress worsened.

Subsequently, though he showed improvement with his oxygen requirement sliding to half, his health condition deteriorated significantly on Monday.

His oxygen requirement went up once again and his cardiac function and chronic kidney disease also deteriorated and he was declared critical. Initially, on admission, he was managed with high flow oxygen therapy through facemask.

The MLA represents Chepauk-Triplicane constituency in the city and had undergone a liver transplant about 15 years ago.

A three-time MLA, Anbazhagan, born on June 10, 1958, incidentally died on his 62nd birthday today and he is the son of late Pazhakadai Jayaraman, a veteran Dravidian movement and DMK leader here.

A backbencher in the Assembly, Anbazhagan is among DMK's noted articulate members in the House and he had often locked horns with ministers and ruling AIADMK MLAs over several issues.