Man with no travel history dies

KOLKATA:A 57-year-old man, who contracted the coronavirus disease or Covid-19 without any foreign travel or contact history with another patient, died on Monday afternoon at a private hospital in Kolkata, fuelling fears that the infection had entered a community transmission stage.

The man was a resident of Dum Dum in the North 24 Parganas district. His wife and five other family members are in isolation at a state-run hospital. Health department officials said the victim went to Bilaspur in Uttar Pradesh in the last week of February and returned on March 2 by train.

This was the first Covid-19 death in the state. “The 57-yearold male patient, who was admitted in the Salt Lake unit on March 16 with high fever and cough, expired at 3.35 pm. Our critical care team tried their best…but he could not be revived,” the hospital said in a statement.

“All necessary steps have been taken to ensure the critical care team is safe. The state health department has been notified and all formalities will be followed as per norms,” the statement added.

The case has triggered fears of community transmission because there was no recorded history of travelling abroad or contact with any Covid-19 patient. The Union health ministry has denied possibility of community transmission – a phase of the outbreak where the origin of the infection cannot be traced to foreign travel or contact with another positive case.

Director of West Bengal health services Ajay Chakraborty said, “On the night of March 1, he travelled in Azad Hind Express which came from Pune which is one of the hotspots.”