Thimphu, March 6: Bhutan on Friday reported the first positive case of a pneumonia-like illness caused by a new strain of coronavirus, now named as COVID-19. On Friday, Prime Minister of Bhutan, Dr. Lotay Tshering informed that one positive case of COVID 19 was confirmed at 11 pm on March 5, 2020. "We would like to inform the general public that one positive case of COVID-19 was confirmed at 11 pm on March 5. The result was validated at 12:30 am today", Tshering said.

In a Facebook post, Tshering said the patient is a 76-year-old from the United States of America, who had come to Bhutan as a tourist. He had entered the country from Paro International Airport, after embarking Drukair flight KB241 from Guwahati, India on March 2. Giving details about the infected patient, Tshering informed that the patient was touring India from February 21 to March 1. He had started his travel from Washington DC on February 18. The patient was travelling with his partner, aged 59. There were 10 passengers on board, of which eight others were Indian nationals.

Here's the Facebook Post:

As of January 1, 2020, the population of Bhutan was estimated to be 827,830 people, reports said. This is an increase of 1.46 % (11,920 people) compared to population of 815,910 the year before.

Here's the tweet:

Amid the rising number of deaths across the globe, the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday said the death toll due to the disease has mounted to to 3,282 across the world. The WHO said it had registered 2,241 new confirmed cases of the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) worldwide in the past 24 hours. It added saying that the number of people, who were diagnosed with COVID-19, has reached 95,333, including 80,565 people in China. COVID-19 was first detected in China's Wuhan in late December and has since spread across the world.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 06, 2020 08:55 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).