The authorities at the Government Medical College Hospital, Kozhikode, have allayed fears about the possibility of infection from two medical students there who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 on Wednesday.
According to T. Jayakrishnan, Professor, and co-coordinator, regional cell for the prevention of epidemics and infectious diseases, these students had neither attended duty at the hospital nor interacted with patients. Since their body fluid samples tested positive for the virus after 28 days and as they were asymptomatic and healthy, they were unlikely to infect others. He said they were part of a group of students who had gone on a tour to north India in March . They returned to Kozhikode from Nizamuddin in Delhi on March 22. They were under 28-day home quarantine after some of their co-passengers were found to have been infected. None of these students had any symptoms.
They were scheduled to start their house surgeon duty on April 21 and were asked to undergo a screening and give a declaration on their travel history and the risks associated with COVID-19. Since they had travelled by the Nizamuddin-Thiruvananthapuram Express, their throat swab samples were sent for lab tests. When it turned out to be positive for SARS-CoV-2 for two of them, both were shifted to the isolation ward.
