Three people from Karnataka’s Udupi have been kept in the isolation ward of the district government hospital on suspicion of coronavirus infection after being admitted on Friday night.  

The three persons were kept in the isolation ward after being admitted to the Ajjarkad Government Hospital late on Friday night. Udupi DHO Dr Sudhir Chandra Suda said that a family residing in Mandarthi had recently visited China but not Wuhan. When the father and his daughter aged 12 caught a cold and cough, they approached the hospital.

“They have cough and cold. We have taken the samples and sent it to the lab in Bengaluru. The results will come back only after 72 hours. In the meantime, we have kept them in the isolation ward as a precautionary measure,” he said.

In the third case, neighbours of a 27-year-old man in Mudarangady, who had returned from Japan allegedly raised a scare and called the district health officials and informed them that the man had been severely unwell after returning from Japan.

“The father and daughter came voluntarily to the hospital and said they were scared it could be coronavirus. In the third patient’s case, we sent an ambulance to bring him to the hospital. All three cases do not look like coronavirus but we cannot release them until results come back and we are 100% sure. They will be kept in the hospital itself. We are treating them for cold and cough,” Dr Sudhir added.

The Karnataka Health Department bulletin states that till date, 130 travellers from coronavirus-affected countries have been identified and 126 are under home isolation. Till date, 96 samples of suspected cases have been sent for testing out of which 76 samples have returned negative. The rest of the samples are being tested.

The recent development of three positive cases of coronavirus in Kerala has resulted in the Karnataka government putting the border districts of Dakshina Kannada, Kodagu, Chamrajnagar, Udupi and Mysuru under surveillance.