COVID-19: Iran-returned Army officer quarantined in Madhya Pradesh

Indore, Mar 03: An Army officer was admitted to the isolation ward of a military hospital at Mhow in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday for suspected exposure to the coronavirus after returning from Iran, a health official said.

The 32-year-old officer returned on February 25 from Tehran, Iran's capital, and was admitted to hospital after he complained of sore throat, said Dr Santosh Sisodia, district in-charge of Integrated Disease Surveillance Program.

"His condition is fine. He has been kept under medical observation in an isolation ward. His blood and swab samples are being sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune for testing," Sisodia added.

Iran announced on Tuesday that 11 more people had died from the new coronavirus on Monday, taking the death toll in that country to 77. In all, 2,336 people have been infected in Iran since the COVID-19 outbreak.

Meanwhile, a 27-year-old woman, who was studying in Italy and admitted to Indore's state-run Maharaja Yashwantrao Hospital for the past two days for suspected exposure to COVID-19 virus tested negative, an official said.

"She had attended a party in Italy a few days ago and a person who was present there later tested positive for the virus. It scared her and she returned to Indore on Saturday," the official said.

Italy, Europe's worst-affected country with around 1,700 coronavirus infections, said that deaths, as of Monday, stood at 52.