Responding to notice served by Dakshina Kannada district administration, three educational institutions in the district have said that they will henceforth strictly comply with the standard operating procedures laid down to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Notice had been issued to Kanachur Institute of Medical Sciences and M.V. Shetty Group of Colleges in Mangaluru taluk and K.V.G. Group of Institutions in Sullia taluk after an inspection by health officials when students, who are in quarantine after their return from Kerala and Maharashtra, were tested positive for COVID-19. Of the 620 students who tested positive in the last 30 days, a majority of them are from these three institutions.
District Health and Family Welfare Officer Kishor Kumar told The Hindu that these institutions were, among others, not properly quarantining outstation students but allowing them to mix up with other students in canteen and other places. “Therefore, we issued notice and the institutions have written back that they will strictly comply with the norms.”
Expressing concern over outstation students with COVID-19 negative certificate testing positive after one week of quarantine, Dr. Kumar, on August 21, wrote to managements of paramedicial, nursing, engineering and dental colleges for strict compliance with protocol.
In the letter, Dr. Kumar asked the managements to allow outstation students for physical classes only after they tested negative for COVID-19. The institutions should ensure that students are properly quarantined and food is supplied to their rooms.
When a student is tested positive after a week of quarantine, the room in which he is staying should be sanitised and the student should be shifted to the COVID care centre where he should be kept for 17 days. He should not be sent to his house.
A student staying with a COVID-19 positive student and his primary/secondary contacts should be quarantined in another place and tested after one week of quarantine. Under no circumstances, COVID-19 positive persons and their primary/secondary contacts should stay together. The institutions have been asked to regularly report to COVID Nodal Officer/ District Disease Surveillance Officer about students testing positive and actions taken. Any non-compliance of these norms will be viewed seriously, the letter stated.
Covid Nodal Officer H. Ashok said that paramedical, nursing and other professional colleges have been asked to carry out tests for students at the laboratories of private medical colleges they are associated with. All these institutions have been told to have their own quarantine and COVID care centres. For other institutions, the government will do testing and arrange quarantine facility, he said.
