Guwahati/Silchar, Mar 31 (PTI) A 52-year-old man tested positive for COVID-19 in Assam's Silchar on Tuesday, making it the first case of the novel coronavirus pandemic in the state, Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.

He is undergoing treatment at the Silchar Medical College and Hospital. There is no need to panic as the patient's condition is stable, Sarma tweeted.

Responding to queries about the man's travel history and other details, the minister said all "needful follow-up was being done". Later, he told a local television news channel that the details would be shared on Wednesday.

The patient was brought to the hospital on March 18 and his sample tested positive, a district official in Silchar said, adding that the National Institute of Virology, Pune, then confirmed the finding.

The patient's family members and others who came in contact with him have been asked to go on home quarantine, he said.

Silchar is located in the Barak Valley that shares borders with Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and Meghalaya and Bangladesh.

More than 4,000 people are on home quarantine in the state, a health department official said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)