3 more coronavirus cases in Bangalore Four people have tested positive for Covid19 in Karnataka

Doctors scan a patient's lungs at Huoshenshan temporary hospital built for patients diagnosed with coronavirus in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province (AP photo)

TT, 11.03.20, Bangalore: Karnataka on Tuesday confirmed three more cases of coronavirus, all in Bangalore, taking the total number to four including a software engineer who had travelled from the US via Dubai.

The department of health and family welfare of the state government said the three new cases were the 47-year-old wife of the engineer who was the first to be infected in Karnataka, the couple’s 13-year-old daughter and a 50-year-old man who had travelled from the US via London.

Health minister B. Sriramulu tweeted about the fresh cases. “Four people have tested positive for Covid19 in Karnataka. All the four people and their families have been isolated and their health condition is being monitored.”

All classes from lower kindergarten to Class V in Bangalore will remain closed till further notice, the government said on Tuesday.

The techie who flew down from the US was admitted to the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases in Bangalore on March 8 as he had cough and fever. His blood samples sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune returned positive on Monday.

A colleague who had travelled with him from Austin in Texas to New York and then to Bangalore via Dubai has also been quarantined along with his family members.

The health department had earlier issued a statement saying it had traced 2,666 people who had come in contact with the engineer who has tested positive. The man had met family and friends, besides moving around in his workplace in Bangalore.

They are among the 1,048 people under observation, 760 of them under home quarantine. Of the 446 samples evaluated, 389 have tested negative while the remaining results are awaited.

Minister for medical education K. Sudhakar told reporters that three teams had been formed to trace more contacts, if any.

The health condition of the Mangalore man who had tried to dodge medical attention on arriving at the local airport on Monday has improved. The health department in Mangalore has said his fever has subsided. They are awaiting the results of the blood samples and throat swabs.

On being taken to the government-run Wenlock District Hospital early on Monday after he arrived from Dubai, the man had surreptitiously left the hospital with his parents. But the district health department traced and quarantined him with the help of police by Monday evening.

Sudhakar said he had written to the Centre seeking advice on the seven IPL home matches. The IPL is scheduled to begin on March 29. The first mach at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore is scheduled for March 31, when Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore is to take on the Kolkata Knight Riders.