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Updated: Mar 13, 2020 10:18 IST

One of the employees of tech giant Google, working in its Bengaluru office, tested positive for Covid-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, news agency ANI reported.

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“We can confirm that an employee from our Bengaluru office has been diagnosed with Covid-19. He was in one of our Bengaluru offices for a few hours before developing any symptoms. The employee has been on quarantine since then,” Google said in a statement on Thursday, as reported by ANI. It did no specify when the employee tested positive for the deadly disease.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we are asking employees in that Bengaluru office to work from home from tomorrow. We have taken and will continue to take necessary precautionary measures, following the advice of public health officials,” the statement further added.

A Google employee in Switzerland had earlier tested positive for Covid-19, prompting the tech giant to impose travel restrictions on employees to travel to Iran, Italy and China.

Earlier, one employee from software major Mindtree and Dell India each had tested positive in bengaluru following their return from the United States.

India witnessed its first coronavirus death when Karnataka Health Minister B Sriramulu on Thursday confirmed that a 76-year-old man from Kalaburgi in the state’s northern region died of Covid-19.

The Union Health Ministry has confirmed 74 coronavirus cases so far. The deadly virus that originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December last year has claimed over 4,600 lives and infected more than 124,330 people worldwide.

Keeping in view the ramifications of the current global spread of coronavirus on public health and safety, New Delhi on Wednesday inducted health safety measures for foreign and Indian nationals entering into and exiting from India.

The measures included halt in visa issuance for tourists and non-diplomatic staffs as set criteria to mitigate the further spread of coronavirus in the country.

India is part of a US-led global initiative to share information on integrating science into coronavirus response, according to a White House statement.

Besides the US and India, the UK, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea are part of the initiative.