Covid-19 cluster among Kerala students in Bengaluru

A new Covid-19 cluster was reported among recently arrived Kerala students at a nursing school in Bengaluru, raising the spectre of additional clusters.

The cases were found at a nursing college in RT Nagar, after a routine Covid-19 testing found two students to be positive. Additional testing uncovered 38 more cases. Epidemiologist Dr Giridhar Babu said it suggested that a potential "superspreader" event had happened.

Sources said 25 of the students are from Kerala, 14 from West Bengal and one from Bihar.

Earlier on Wednesday, 53 students of a private nursing college in Mysuru had tested positive for Covid-19. Most of them had returned from Kerala. A nursing college and its hostel in Mangaluru's Ullal were also sealed this month after 40 students, all from Kerala, tested positive for Covid-19.

Talking about the Bengaluru cluster, Rajendra Cholan, Special Commissioner (Health), Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), said, “The first two cases were found on February 7, two days after a batch of 80 students was mandatorily tested for Covid-19 before undertaking scholastic exams. The remaining 38 cases were found on Friday."

BBMP Commissioner N Manjunatha Prasad said the first two cases were students from Kerala. He added that the college had commenced on January 25 with a total of 210 students, most of them from Kerala. “The remaining 170 students who have not yet tested positive are also under home quarantine regulations at their hostel for a period of 14 days,” he said.

Samples from the 40 positive cases have been sent to Nimhans for genomic sequencing.

Nicole Sharon, principal of the nursing school, said the positive cases have come as a surprise as all of the students had produced Covid-19 RT-PCR negative certificates before rejoining the college in January. “A Covid-19 certificate is valid for only three days, and because the students moved around after coming to the city, it is possible that they contracted the disease here,” Sharon said.

According to the BBMP, 28 students are asymptomatic while 12 have mild symptoms.

Sources said that 10 of the positive students had also participated in the Pulse Polio vaccination drive between January 31 and February 3.

Centralised isolation

According to sources, most of the students are first-year students, although a few are members of older batches domiciled at the nursing school’s hostel. “We have rented a paying guest accommodation and are isolating them all in this one location,” the college said.

The BBMP said it will conduct mass testing camps at all nursing and medical colleges across Bengaluru between February 14 and February 20.