Fresh outbreak in Kolar nursing college, poultry farm

KOLAR: Alarm bells were ringing in the corridors of Kolar’s district administration after two Covid-19 cluster outbreaks were reported — one in KGF taluk and another in Mulbagal taluk.
Fresh cases in Kolar district were declining, with only seven new infections reported on August 24. However, there has been an uptick since August 25. On Sunday, the district reported 54 new infections.
Officials attributed the spike to students from Kerala returning to colleges in the district.G Prasanna Kumar, health inspecting officer, KGF taluk, claimed “scores” of students from Kerala returned to Noor Unissa Nursing College campus in KGF four days ago. Initially, four had shown symptoms and tested positive.
Sensing trouble, authorities took samples of another 56 students, all from Kerala, and 28 of them were found to be infected. Health officials then conducted tests on all 265 students from Kerala enrolled in the college. By Monday evening, 66 had tested positive. The number may well go past 80, Kumar said.
He said the college has been sealed off and sanitised. He said, when they arrived, students had submitted Covid negative test reports issued by private labs in Kolar, but their authenticity was doubtful.
Meanwhile, border taluk Mulbagal reported 16 new cases in the past 24 hours. All the cases emanated from a new poultry farm at V Shettyhalli village, near Urukunte Mittor, said Dr Varnashree, taluk medical officer.
She said a Bengaluru-based poultry farm was setting up a branch at the village and had hired labourers from Sarjapur, Bengaluru. Four of them tested positive two days ago. Tests were then conducted on all 24 labourers and 16 were found to be infected. She said all who have contracted the infection have been admitted to BGML Hospital and steps are being taken to sanitise the farm.
Dr Varnashree said staff are keeping an eye on villages which share borders with Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Barring KGF and Mulbagal, the other four taluks in the district have been reporting positive cases in single digits during the past few days, the health department said.