Karnataka reports 2 new Covid-19 cases without travel & contact history

BENGALURU: Two positive cases of Covid-19 reported in Karnataka on Friday of patients not having a travel history to the virus-infected countries or known contact history has raised concerns about the possibilities of community transmission of the disease. The state health department has, however, denied the speculations and said there was no proof for community transmission.

One of the patients is a 60-year-old man from Tumakuru who died of Covid-19 on Friday morning. The deceased had no travel history to the virus-infected countries. The man had travelled to Delhi on March 7 for a week. He had reached Tumakuru on March15 and developed symptoms a week later.

Another case is of a 10-month-old child from Dakshina Kannada district which too did not have travel history to Covid-19-affected countries. Health officials said that the child currently under treatment, had recently travelled to Kerala with parents.

On Thursday, the state had reported its first case of a Covid-19 person with no direct travel or known contact history. The patient worked at the quality assurance section of a pharmaceutical company and had come in contact with healthcare professionals.

Jawaid Akhtar, additional chief secretary, health and family welfare department said both the patients tested positive on Friday had travel history to Covid-19 affected places — Delhi and Kerala. “We are in the process of contact tracing and it will take sometime before we come to a conclusion,” he said.

“We deny community spread. There is no evidence so far to prove the same,” he added.

With nine new cases reported on Friday, the total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the state is 64. More than half of the total cases

(39) are from Bengaluru. Of them, five patients have been discharged.