Who was the first Indian to test positive for Covid-19?

Nearly 18 months after India's first-ever person contracted Covid-19, she has tested positive for the virus again on Monday.

On January 30 in 2020, a medical student of Wuhan University who returned to Kerala tested positive for the coronavirus. Covid-19 cases worldwide then stood at 7,711 and deaths due to the disease at 170, a health ministry official had informed.

The student, following the outbreak in China, reached Kolkata from Wuhan, where the virus was first found, on January 23. She then landed in Kochi and further travelled to her hometown in Kerala.

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An advisory had been established to screen those with travel history from China. She then informed the local health officials about her travel from Wuhan. She was told to isolate for 28 days, maintain hygiene and wear a mask.

On January 27, she informed the District Surveillance Officer that she had developed symptoms of flu, which were then known to be the only symptoms of Covid-19. The medicos helped her move to an isolation ward at Thrissur General Hospital.

Her samples were sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune, which confirmed on January 30 that the test had turned positive.

The woman had told DH she was at the hospital watching television when the news of the first Covid case broke.

"But I never thought that I would be the one as hundreds were under surveillance. But as news update came that the infected person was a girl under isolation at Thrissur general hospital, I was almost confirmed that it was me. Soon doctors also confirmed. Immediately I contacted those who traveled with me from China to India and asked them to be cautious," she had said.

She had not reported any contact with a suspected or confirmed case of Covid-19. She also had not visited Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where several initial patients had traces of exposure.

However, she saw various people with respiratory symptoms on the train she was travelling in China, according to the Indian Journal of Medical Research or IJMR paper.

At the hospital, she was asymptomatic on February 3, 2020. She tested negative on day 19 of her illness and was eventually discharged on February 20.

Now, a year and a half later, she has contracted the virus again when she was tested for her travel to New Delhi. She is asymptomatic.