india

Updated: Apr 09, 2020 06:49 IST

Jodhpur’s first Covid-19 patient, Himanshu Uttamchandani, walked out of hospital this week after being declared infection free. But the same day, thousands of miles away in Madrid, his uncle Mohan breathed his last after battling the same infection for nearly a week.

Himanshu, 37, and his uncle last met in Turkey, where the entire family had gathered in the second week of March for a wedding. When Himanshu came back to India on March 18, accompanied by his mother, wife, daughter, uncle and aunt, he was examined at the airport but was cleared.

Three days later, he went to the local hospital with his wife after a throat infection and submitted a throat swab. Later that night, the report came back positive for Covid-19 and his entire family was quarantined at the Institute of Infectious Diseases in Jodhpur.

He was discharged on April 6.

But Mohan, 71, was less lucky. “Mohan’s health check or screening was not done when he returned to Spain from Turkey. After 4-5 days, seeing symptoms like illness, the doctor came,” said Mohan’s brother and Himashu’s father, Shankar.

The doctor asked Mohan to stay home instead of admitting him in the hospital and gave him medicines, but his health deteriorated. On March 31, Mohan was taken to a hospital where he was kept in the ICU, but his condition didn’t improve. “Patients are not being admitted unless the condition is very critical. Mohan’s funeral may have to wait for a month,” said Shankar.