BHOPAL: A 30-year-old patient, who returned from China a week ago and turned up at Gwalior district hospital on Thursday with coronavirus-like symptoms, was told to go back home. This, only a day after health minister Tulsiram Silawat ordered a statewide alert on the virus that has killed 170 people in China.The administration is frantically looking for the patient. Chief medical and health officer Dr Mridul Saxena has sought explanations from the civil surgeon B K Gupta and the doctor who treated him.Sources say the patient turned up at the hospital on his own after reading news reports of the viral outbreak. At the OPD, the doctors prescribed some medicines and asked him to come after two days. Still anxious, the patient went to another government hospital, Jai Arogya, and then returned home.“The patient arrived at the district hospital OPD in the morning with symptoms of cold and cough. If he was suspected (of coronavirus infection), then why wasn’t protocol followed? We have asked for clarifications from the civil surgeon and doctor who attended to him. Instructions have been issued to trace the patient and ensure that treatment protocols are followed,” Saxena said.Dr Gupta said, “We have traced the patient. He had gone to Jai Arogya Hospital after visiting our OPD but he went away there. We have sought his report from the doctors who treated him at JAH and are contacting the patient so that his samples can be taken. Appropriate protocol will be followed. We have got his address and are sending a team of doctors to his residence”.