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Bengaluru, Apr 25: With 26 new COVID-19 cases confirmed in the past 24 hours, the total number of positive cases in Karnataka reached 500 on Saturday.

This includes 158 patients who have been cured and discharged following treatment while 18 deaths have been reported so far due to the infection in the State, according to a media bulletin issued by the Department of Health and Family Welfare on Saturday evening.

A total of 324 COVID-19 cases are currently active in the State as of Saturday evening 5 pm.
According to the bulletin, Bengaluru Urban with 133 positive cases, including 49 discharged and four deaths, is the worst-affected district in the State, followed by Mysuru and Belagavi, with 89 and 54 confirmed cases, respectively.

Karnataka on Saturday reported 12 new cases, the highest in a single day so far, taking the tally in the state to 76.

Late at night, the Mysuru district commissioner said five more people had tested positive in the district. But it was yet to be confirmed by the state health department.

Of the cases, 41 are from Bengaluru, eight from Chikkaballapur, while Uttara Kannada and Dakshina Kannada districts have seven each.

Interestingly, the highest number of patients are those from Dubai or those who had transit travel via Dubai. Out of 76 cases, 17 cases (22%) have travel history to Dubai, the capital of Emirate of Dubai and the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar, who is also in-charge of COVID-19 operations, said that Dubai has been a major concern as far as Karnataka COVID-19 patients are concerned. “Most of the positive cases have come through Dubai suggesting something amiss there,” he said. 

Echoing the same, Dr Prakash Kumar, Joint Director, Communicable Diseases, Department of Health and Family Welfare, said, “The layover in Dubai is around six to seven hours. We are seeing Dubai to be the new epicentre of the virus as far as India is concerned.”

UAE was initially not on the list of countries from where passengers were screened. It was added much later when clusters of patients with travel history to Dubai began popping up all over the country.

Patient-19 has infected the maximum so far.

Out of the 12 cases that tested positive on Saturday, five are contacts of Patient 19. All of them are being treated at a Chikkaballapur hospital. Two of them are from Hindupur, Andhra Pradesh, and three are residents of Gauribidanur taluk in Chikkabalapur district.

P19, a 31-year-old man from Chikkaballapur, had travelled to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and returned to India on March 14. Existing patient clusters suggest that P19 had infected the maximum number of people. Officials did not reveal how many people he originally travelled with to Mecca.

Amid the rise in cases, Jawaid Akhtar, Additional Chief Secretary (Health), maintained that the state had not reached stage 3. But he had no definitive answer as to how the Mysuru patient contracted the virus despite health officials he was in touch with not testing positive.

Health Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey said around 1,000 primary contacts of all positive cases have been classified as high-risk and low-risk. The high-risk patients are in government hospitals while the low-risk ones in quarantine facilities.