Town that recorded first coronavirus death in India reports another positive test

Kalaburagi: Another person has tested positive for COVID-19 (coronavirus) in Kalaburagi, the town in Karnataka which recorded the first death in the current outbreak in India.

Kalaburagi deputy commissioner B Sharath confirmed the finding late this evening.

Officials had been awaiting results of tests ever since samples taken from a 76-year-old religious leader, Mohammed Siddiqui, tested coronavirus positive after his death last Tuesday. Members of his family and those he had come in contact with were kept in isolation since then, and samples were sent for tests.

On Saturday, three persons thus returned negative on Saturday.

Even ahead of this evening’s positive result, civic movement in the town had been restricted with checkpoints set up all over Ward 10, where the patient resided.

As many as 71 persons are observation with symptoms in this town, including 16 who returned home from abroad. The first coronavirus fatality was also of a man who returned from a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.