Kerala Students In Karnataka's Hassan District To Undergo Covid Tests After 38 Test Positive

The move comes after 38 nursing students who returned from Kerala tested positive for the infection in the district as on Friday.

Covid Tests

Hassan: Students from Kerala who are residing in Hassan district in Karnataka will be subjected to Covid-19 tests, said district authorities. The move comes after 38 nursing students who returned from Kerala tested positive for the infection in the district as on Friday. 

The authorities have sealed a PG hostel facility and quarantined 27 of their primary contacts.

The nursing students reached Karnataka to take up nursing exams about a week ago. Though they had come with Covid negative reports, the Hassan district authorities subjected them to the Covid-19 test. While the test reports of 21 women students were obtained on Thursday, authorities received the test reports of the remaining students on Friday. All of them belong to the same college. 

Health officials immediately swung into action and sealed the Nisarga Paying Guest hostel. All the 27 primary contacts of 21 students whose test results were received on Thursday were quarantined. The authorities are now subjecting all students from Kerala to Covid tests. 

A large number of students had enrolled for nursing and other courses in Hassan city.

Meanwhile, people staged a protest outside the residence of the Deputy Commissioner, R. Girish for the non-availability of vaccines. The protestors said that they have been waiting for more than a week for the first dose of the Covid vaccine.

Last week, the Karnataka government had made it mandatory for the people travelling from Kerala and Maharashtra to produce a negative RT-PCR test report that is not older than 72 hours albeit taking Covid jabs, to enter into the state. The step was taken following the rising number of Covid-19 cases in both states, according to The Times of India.

(With inputs from IANS)