Coronavirus: Karnataka reports first COVID-19 case as IT professional tests

Bengaluru, Mar 09: A software engineer who returned here from the US recently has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, becoming the first COVID-19 patient in Karnataka, state Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar said on Monday.

"Tests were done twice and on both the occasions it was confirmed that he had COVID-19," he told reporters here. The man had come from Austin in the US along with his wife and daughter on March 1.

After going to a private hospital on noticing symptoms, he had voluntarily approached the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases (RGICD) on March 8, he said.

The man has been kept under strict medical supervision at the RGICD, the minister said adding his family members and a colleague have been placed under quarantine at the hospital.

The engineer's driver and the latter's wife and two children had been put under home quarantine, he said.

The state health department has identified 2,606 people with whom the family had primary and secondary contacts since the time they landed, health department officials said. They included 60 passengers in the flight.