The first confirmed novel coronavirus case was detected in West Bengal on March 17, as a youth who returned from the UK recently tested positive.

The youth, who came back from the UK on March 15, was admitted to the state's referral hospital for infectious diseases ID Hospital, Beliaghata, on Tuesday morning. His sample, sent to the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED), was found to be positive in the evening. Soon after receiving the test report, the hospital and state health department officials transferred him to a special isolation ward earmarked for confirmed Corona virus cases. His parents and driver were also being brought to the ID hospital for quarantine. According to health department officials, their samples would be sent to NICED on Tuesday night itself.

According to sources, the youth, who studies in England, had attended a birthday party there in which a number of invitees later developed the deadly disease. The youth apparently did not have any symptoms of Novel Corona virus. However, when the health department officials learnt that a number of people who attended the party, including his girlfriend, had got the disease, they asked him to get admitted on Monday. However, his patients took him to hospital only on Tuesday.

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