Ninety-nine more students have tested positive for the coronavirus at a medical college in Karnataka, taking the total number of infections detected there to 281, PTI reported on Saturday.
A programme held at the SDM College of Medical Sciences and Hospital in the state’s Dharwad district last month is suspected to have caused the spread of the infection.
As of Friday, 182 students of the institute were found to have contracted Covid-19. All of them were fully vaccinated.
All the 1,788 students at the college have been tested and the results of some of them are awaited, Karnataka Health Minister K Sudhakar said, according to ANI.
Covid-19 cases have also been detected among the students of another college on the outskirts of Bengaluru and a boarding school, PTI reported.
Karnataka Health Minister Basavaraj Bommai will hold a meeting on Saturday with health and disaster management officials to discuss ways to control the spread of Covid-19 at schools and colleges and the new variant of Covid-19 that has sparked concern across the world.
Cases of the variant have been detected in South Africa, Belgium, Botswana, Hong Kong and Israel.
People travelling to Bengaluru from these countries will have to undergo tests at the airport even if they have negative Covid-19 certificates, the Karnataka health minister said, according to PTI.
“They [the travellers] will be allowed outside the airport only after testing negative,” Sudhakar said. “Even after testing negative they will have to remain at home and after seven days they will have to undergo a test once again. After getting a negative report, one can go out,” he added.
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