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Karnataka: 145 more COVID positive cases reported from MIT-Manipal campus

According to Sudhirchandra Sooda, Udupi District Health Officer (DHO), all 145 new cases identified on the MIT campus were primary contacts of students who tested positive in the last few days.

Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) situated in Karnataka’s Udupi district continued to host a growing cluster of Covid-19 cases as the total number of infections on campus rose to 299. Notably, 145 new cases of the total 170 reported from the coastal district were from the engineering college campus alone.

According to Sudhirchandra Sooda, District Health Officer (DHO), all 145 new cases identified on the MIT campus were primary contacts of students who tested positive in the last few days. Testing was intensified in MIT after the district administration identified it as a containment zone last Wednesday.

“However, all of them were asymptomatic. Testing is on for all students across the campus,” the DHO added. Following the spurt of new coronavirus cases on campus, Deputy Commissioner G Jagadeesha had said nearly 5000 students would undergo testing.
Meanwhile, the college management directed students not to make any travel plans until the district administration decided to remove curbs related to the campus being marked as a containment zone.

In a letter to the students, on March 20, MIT Director D Srikanth Rao also assured support to students from the institute and all faculty members. According to the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) administration, the Community Medicine Department of Kasturba Medical College and the Health Department have been jointly managing the fever clinic and testing facility on the MIT campus.
Earlier, the MIT management has decided to move all theoretical classes online, also notifying students of deferring practical sessions and laboratory classes. The MAHE administration had also decided to reschedule pending exams for the first semester B.Tech students to another date.
At the same time, Udupi became the first district in the state, other than Bengaluru Urban, to report over a hundred cases on a single day (170) in the last few months. With 24 people recovering from the virus in the last 24 hours, 358 cases are active in the district, as per data issued by the Department of Health and Family Welfare Services.