Nagpur: A medical college in Dharwad, Karnataka has become a Covid-19 hotspot with more than 77 people testing positive on Friday, taking the total tally to 281.
The college, identified as c of medical sciences is considered to be the medical hub of North Karnataka. Currently, fresh admissions in the hospital have been suspended due to the outbreak, the entry and exit to the hospital has also been blocked and out of the admitted, those who test negative will only be discharged.
Most of the people who have been tested positive are said to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19, as per the officials. They also claimed that the freshers party organsied inside the college led to the outbreak in the campus. The party continued for two to three days. Chairman of Manipal Hospital and member of Covid-19 task force team in Karnataka, Dr Sudarhan Ballal said the Covid-19 cluster in the campus is a cause of concern.
“There was a large cluster that turned to be positive and all of them were at an event. This means the variant of this virus is infectious. Second concern, all the students were fully vaccinated which means there is a immune escape phenomena,” he said. Ballal further added that the disease is not very severe and genomic sequencing will help in deciding the new kind of variant.
State health commissioner D Randeep said 113 positive samples have been sent to Strand Life sciences Pvt ltd in Bangalore.