A 76-year-old man from Karnataka’s Kalaburagi became the first victim of the deadly pandemic in India. He has been confirmed positive for COVID-19, state Health Minister B Sriramulu confirmed on Thursday night.
According to the reports, in an official notification, a senior health official Dr Suresh Shastri said that the lab test has confirmed that the deceased man had COVID-19. Previously, the doctors had suspected that the man had coronavirus, however, the test had not confirmed it.
Commissioner,Karnataka Health Dept:76-yr-old man from Kalaburagi who passed away&was a suspected COVID-19 patient has been confirmed positive for COVID-19. Contact tracing, isolation&other measures being taken. Telangana Govt. has also been informed as he went to a hospital there
— ANI (@ANI) March 12, 2020
Reportedly, the deceased returned to Kalaburgi on February 29 from the Middle East and passed away on Wednesday. He went to a private hospital in Kalburgi district on March 5 and was admitted there following respiratory issues and hypertension. On March 8, he was shifted to a hospital in Hyderabad in the nearby state of Telangana. His family reportedly checked him out of the hospital the same day and his death occurred late at night.
According to the Union health ministry official, the old man visited Saudi Arabia on January 29 and returned to India a month later on February 29.
“He was a known case of hypertension and asthma. He reached back to Hyderabad on February 29 and went to Kalaburgi. While he was asymptomatic on his return, he developed symptoms of fever and cough on March 6. One private doctor visited him at his home and treated him there,” the statement read.
However, on March 9, the Kalaburgi man’s health deteriorated with aggravated symptoms and a private hospital in the town provisionally diagnosed his case as mid-zone viral pneumonia and suspected COVID-19.
“The samples were collected on March 9th by Viral Research Diagnostic Laboratory, Gulbarga Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS), Kalaburgi collected his sample to rule out the COVID-19 and dispatched it to VDRL, Bangalore Medical College & Research Institute, Bengaluru to rule out Coronavirus. Without waiting for the test results, the attendees insisted and the patient was discharged against medical advice (DAMA) and the attendees took him to a private hospital in Hyderabad,” said the statement.
Though Kalaburgi District Health Officer met the patient’s relatives and requested them to shift the patient to an isolated ward within GIMS, according to the instructions of the Deputy Commissioner of the district, the relatives did not heed them and moved the patient without the officer’s knowledge to Hyderabad.
“The patient was admitted in a private hospital in Hyderabad and treated. Later he was discharged and while he was being brought back he died on the way to GIMS, Kalaburgi on Tuesday,” a said the statement.
Currently, all precautionary measures as per protocol such as contact tracing, screening and home quarantine of the contacts have been initiated by the Kalaburgi district health and family welfare department and being monitored continuously.
Apart from the deceased, Karnataka has confirmed five other positive cases of the novel coronavirus. The fifth case, confirmed on Thursday is of a 26-year-old man who recently returned from Greece.
Coronavirus is a deadly respiratory disease which has killed more than 4,600 and so far more than 1,26,0000 cases are reported globally, according to the World Health Organisation. The outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first reported from Wuhan, China, on 31 December 2019.
On Thursday, the number of people infected with coronavirus in India rose to 73, with fresh cases reported from Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Ladakh. The transmission of the virus takes place when someone who is infected comes in contact with another person. According to medical experts, coughing, sneezing or even shaking hands with an infected person can cause exposure.
