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COVID19: Karnataka man who died on Tuesday tests positive for coronavirus

BENGALURU: A 76-year-old man from Kalaburagi in north Karnataka, who died on March 10, is the country's first Covid-19 fatality, with test results on Thursday confirming that he was infected.The man had a travel history to Saudi Arabia and died while being brought from a Hyderabad hospital to Kalaburagi on March 10. His throat swab samples had been received at a Bengaluru lab only on March 11.Karnataka health and family welfare department officials said though the senior citizen had arrived from a Covid-19-affected country, his symptoms were misleading and tests for the novel coronavirus were delayed due to old age-related complications such as breathing difficulty, asthma and hypertension."Forty-three people, including his family members and doctors, who had come into contact with him are under home isolation and are being monitored closely," a health official said.The man from Kalaburagi, 570 km north of Benglauru, had left for Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on pilgrimage on January 29. He arrived on February 29 at Hyderabad airport where he was screened and showed no symptoms of Covid-19, and proceeded to Kalaburagi, about 230 km away.By March 5 he developed complications and was taken to the OPD of a private hospital in Kalaburagi. He was admitted the next day. Officials said he was shifted to a hospital in Hyderabad on March 9 for unknown reasons. But by then his samples had been taken for Covid-19 tests in Bengaluru.On March 10, the man's family brought him back from the Hyderabad hospital. "He died on the way to Kalaburagi, we don't know exactly when or where," an official said.