A 76-year-old man suspected to be infected with coronavirus admitted at Gulbarga Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS) and later at a private hospital in Hyderabad where he died in Karnataka’s Kalaburagi, District Health and Family Welfare department said on Wednesday. If the tests come out to be positive, it would mark the country’s first fatality due to Covid-19.

District health officer (DHO) Dr MA Jabbar has issued an official circular identified him as Mohammed Hussain Siddiqui, who died in a government hospital on Tuesday and waiting for the final report of throat culture sample of the patient sent for lab test.

His sample was sent to Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute’s Virus Research and Diagnostic Laboratory. Health officials of the district have kept strict watch on the family members of the disease to prevent any spreading of the same.

Sources in GIMS said Siddiqui had recently returned from Saudi Arabia on Feb 29 and admitted to the GIMS hospital on March 5 in an isolation ward as he was suffering from cold, cough and fever. “His family members had shifted him to Hyderabad for higher treatment” they added.

The amount of individuals affected with COVID-19 virus is increased to 61. An individual of Indian origin has already died in London. In Pune, three more new cases are recognized. In Kerala, the number of infected people has risen for 12 to 19 in a single day.

The novel coronavirus, now officially called Covid-19, has claimed the lives of more than 4200 people and infected over 115800 people across the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency as the death toll and overall cases began rising rapidly across the world.