Officials from the health department in Karnataka have stated that a 60-year-old doctor from Kalaburagi has now tested positive for coronavirus. Further, the doctor had been in contact with the 76-year-old man who had died due to the disease in the district, the officials said. However, the deceased Kalaburagi man had not been confirmed to be positive for the virus until after he died. Since he had other health issues, the doctor was treating him for that and perhaps did not suspect COVID-19.
The 76-year-old man who succumbed to COVID19 was the first person to have died from the disease in the country. The doctor had been in contact with the deceased man during the course of the latter’s treatment in the hospital in Kalaburagi.
Another person who had been found to be positive for the virus is an Indian student from the United Kingdom who was visiting her family in Karnataka. “She had been under home isolation when she began showing symptoms. Her uncle is a doctor who works in the government sector, who is the one who took her for testing after she developed symptoms, which is how they were able to confirm quickly that she had also contracted the virus,” stated Dr Sudhakar, Minister of Medical Education.
This takes the total number of people in the state with confirmed infection to 10. The elderly man from Kalaburagi who had died had succumbed because he had several underlying medical conditions which complicated his recovery, as per officials. The second death reported in the country was a 68-year-old elderly woman from Delhi. On Tuesday, a third death was confirmed from Maharashtra – a 64-year-old man from Mumbai.
Karnataka is currently under a week-long lockdown ordered by the government. Pubs, malls and theaters across the state have been asked to be closed and an advisory has been issued to Information Technology (IT) companies in Bengaluru to allow employees to work from home. Officials have stated that new measures will be implemented soon to help curb the spread of the disease, as the number of cases in the state reaches 10.
(This story was first published in The News Minute and has been republished with permission)
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