Story By: Michael Leidig, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report

An Indian man who watched too many videos about the coronavirus online killed himself when doctors told him to wear a mask because he had a cold – and he became convinced that he had the coronavirus and was going to infect his family.

The misunderstanding happened in Andhra Pradesh’s Chitoor district in India with a man aged 50 had gone to the Tirupati’s Ruia Hospital with heart problems.

The patient, identified only as Balakrishnayya, was tested and found to have a cold and was given a mask to wear by medics at the Tirupati’s Ruia Hospital.

The man son said: “He had gone to hospital for checkup regarding heart ailment. The doctors told him to use a mask…. he misunderstood and thought he was infected with coronavirus.

“He wouldn’t let any of us come near him. I told him you don’t have infection but he wouldn’t listen. May be, if he got proper counselling, he would have listened. He saw lots of videos (on internet) about symptoms and concluded that he had all those symptoms. He locked us up in the house on Monday and before we could get help to stop him, he hanged himself on a tree.”

There have however so far been no cases of coronavirus in Andhra Pradesh where the man lives although it has killed over a thousand people worldwide, most of them in China.

There were however three cases in Kerala of people who had recently returned from Wuhan city regarded as the epicentre of the outbreak.

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