On Friday, a man admitted to a Kottayam hospital’s coronavirus isolation ward has died, a Kerala government official said. The district medical officer attributed the death to septicemia and underlined that the 72-year-old patient had not tested positive.
“He had been kept in isolation as a precaution since he had come in contact with some coronavirus-infected people in Kottayam,” district medical officer AN Sheeja said.
Kerala has reported 17 of India’s 75 confirmed coronavirus cases.
The victim was reportedly feeling uneasy since Thursday evening. He died en route to the Kottayam Medical College. His biological samples have been sent for testing. The District Collector later confirmed the man died of heart attack. The District Collector later confirmed the man died of heart attack.
The victim’s son was a ‘primary contact’ of the son-in-law. The son-in-law reportedly visited the deceased regularly at a shop the latter ran.
All protocols will be followed for the last rites of the victim. People have been moved out of the affected neighbourhood in Chengalam as a precautionary measure. The health department advised the public to stay away from the victim’s funeral.
The development comes just a day after the central government confirmed the country’s first coronavirus-linked death in neighbouring Karnataka. The test results, which confirmed that the 76-year-old man who died two days earlier in the state’s Kalburgi district was coronavirus positive, had come in last night.
