In a sigh of relief for the Karnataka government and people in the state, two people who were isolated over suspicions of having contracted coronavirus, have tested negative. Karnataka Medical Education Minister Dr Sudhakar told the media that one among this was a colleague of the 24-year-old techie who hails from Hyderabad and had tested positive for the virus. The other person who has tested negative is an Iranian national who had travelled to the city.
In total, five people were kept in an isolation ward in the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases in the city. The techie’s roommate, as reported by TNM earlier, has shown no symptoms till now and no medical tests have been conducted on this person.
The other two people in the isolation ward had returned recently from Saudi Arabia and Japan. Their test results will come in only on Wednesday night, said the minister.
Meanwhile, the apartment in which the techie lived in Sarjapur road has been put under medical surveillance, government officials said that the apartment building that has 92 flats of which 11 remain locked. 61 people were screened by the Health department on Tuesday and 189 people on Wednesday. No one has shown any symptoms of the virus, the department confirmed.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Wednesday told the media that the total number of coronavirus cases in India is now 28. This includes the three people in Kerala who later recovered, the Mayur Vihar resident in Delhi, the Hyderabad techie and the 23 new cases announced on Wednesday — 16 Italian tourists who visited Rajasthan and Delhi, one Indian driver who drove them around and 6 people in Agra, who are relatives of the Delhi residents and were infected when he went to visit them.