The death of two elderly people on Wednesday took COVID-19 related fatalities to 12 in Karnataka, where 19 new positive cases have been confirmed, taking the total number of infections to 279, the health department said.
The government also said that 11 of the 170 districts identified as hotspots in the country are from Karnataka.
A total of 12 coronavirus deaths have been reported so far in the state with the death of a 80-year-old woman in Belagavi and a 65-year-old man from Chikkaballapura in Bengaluru hospital, the department said in a bulletin.
The woman had a heart problem and was also suffering from ashtma and high BP and was the contact of a patient who had tested positive, Primary and Secondary Education Minister Suresh Kumar told reporters, briefing about the bulletin.
The man who died was referred from a private hospital here to a COVID-19 designated hospita on late evening April 13 as he was H1N1 positive, had Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease with obstructive sleep apnea and a past history of uncontrolled diabetes mellitus and hypertension, he said.
As of 5.00 PM on April 15, Cumulatively 279 COVID-19 positive cases have been confirmed in the state, which includes 12 deaths and 80 discharges, the bulletin said.
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Of the 187 active cases, 184 (including a pregnant woman) are in isolation at designated hospitals and are stable, while three are in Intensive Care Units, it said.
The 80-year-old woman who died in Belagavi is among the 19 newly reported cases, nine of whom are pharma company workers at Nanjanagudu in Mysore.
Five are contacts of patients who earlier tested positive, two with a history of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection, one with Influenza Like Illness and a policeman on duty at a madrasa in Mudhol, Bagalkote district.
Contact tracing has been initiated and is in progress for all the cases, the department said.
Nine out of total of 279 cases detected and confirmed in Karnataka so far are transit passengers of Kerala.
Bengaluru, with 71 people testing positive, topped the state with the most number of cases, followed by Mysuru 58 and Belagavi 19.
Of 80 patients discharged so far, 35 are from Bengaluru, 12 from Mysuru, eight each from Chikkaballapura, Dakshina Kannada and Uttara Kannada; while among the dead are three from Kalaburagi, two each from from Bengaluru urban and Chikkaballapura and one each from Belagavi, Bagalkote, Vijapura, Gadag and Tumakuru.
To a question on increasing number of cases linked to pharma company in Nanjanagudu, Kumar said several foreigners had visited the firm in February from countries like USA, Germany, Japan, China, among others.
"On March 24, the first case from the company was confirmed...so far 780 samples have been tested related to the company, of which 46 have tested positive. we may get more."