A miscommunication with doctors led to his death as he wrongly thought he had coronavirus | REUTERS image for representation

The novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) threat in India has been worrisome lately. The coronavirus threat killed a man in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh.

He died not because of the coronavirus but a grave misreadreading. The 54-year-old Chittoor man killed himself after he though he had coronavirus infection but so was not the case as he mistook his symptoms for those of coronavirus, according to a The News Minute report.

A miscommunication with doctors led to his death as he wrongly thought he had coronavirus.

The doctors told the man he did not have coronavirus but he asked them, including all the villagers to stay away from him else they too would contract coronavirus, the report said.

The man was advised to wear a mask due to some infection so that he did not contract other infections. This made him behave strangely and on Monday, he killed himself, according to the report.

His son said that his father panicked and was of the strong view that he had contracted coronavirus. This led to all the more panic when the man started saying he needed to kill himself to keep other safe from him and coronavirus.

CORONAVIRUS AND INDIA

Last week, out of the 324 people that were evacuated from China through first Air India flight, 56, 53 and 42 were from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, respectively.

With the threat of novel coronavirus looming large, the Union Health Ministry has decided to stock up at least 50,000 personal protection equipment (PPE) kits for doctors and other medical staff treating the patients.

India is among the top 30 countries at "high-risk" from the spread of the deadly coronavirus, according to a study based on the number of air travelers predicted to arrive in the countries from the worst-affected cities in China.

The coronavirus is a large family of viruses that causes illnesses ranging from the common cold to acute respiratory syndromes, but the virus that has killed people in China is a novel strain and not seen before.

Common symptoms of the novel coronavirus strain include respiratory symptoms such as fever, cough and shortness of breath, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).