New Delhi, July 2: A 51-year-old man with symptoms of respiratory illness who died in Kerala a few days after arriving from London was not infected with the pandemic H1N1 influenza virus, a state health official said tonight.

“He was a suspect, but we’ve just received information from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases in Delhi that his samples were negative for H1N1,” said Dr Amar Fettle, the nodal officer for swine flu combat in Thiruvananthapuram.

Officials learnt about the man from a Kollam hospital where he died yesterday. He had flown into Kerala on June 12 and developed cold and cough only on June 23. “This was beyond the typical 10-day incubation period of the H1N1 virus,” Fettle said. The man appeared to have developed a lung infection that “looked like viral pneumonia”, he added.