Worrying trend as four Covid clusters pop up in Karnataka
BENGALURU/HUBBALLI/MYSURU: At least four Covid clusters have erupted in Karnataka over the last few days — two in Bengaluru, and one each in Dharwad and Mysuru — in a worrying turnaround from a steady decline amid fears of a new SARS-CoV-2 virus variant entering the country.
A day after news broke of two Covid clusters in educational institutions in Dharwad and Bengaluru, 12 students of Spurthy College of Nursing in Marsur, Anekal in Bengaluru tested positive on Friday. The other existing cluster was the one detected on Thursday at The International School Bangalore (TISB), a residential educational institution that saw 33 students and one staffer being infected.
While Bengaluru’s two clusters have 46 positive cases, Dharwad’s SDM Medical College reported a total of 204 cases, of which 138 were reported on Friday. The Mysuru cluster is from two private nursing colleges — St Joseph’s Nursing College and Cauvery Nursing College — where 48 cases have been detected over the last few days, of which 25 were reported on Friday. However, most of the cases are asymptomatic, while those with symptoms have a mild infection.
In Bengaluru, a health officer said, “The nursing college students were tested on Thursday and the reports turned out to be positive on Friday. None of them had any travel history. All, except one, are vaccinated.” The lone student who had not received the shot had tested Covid positive previously and did not take the vaccine after that. Nine students are symptomatic with mild symptoms, while three are asymptomatic. The nine have been isolated at a Covid Care Centre in Jigani.
‘South Africa variant cause of concern’
If the cluster is caused by the Delta variant, there is no reason to worry. However, if it is the new variant detected in Botswana and South Africa, it is a cause of concern, said Dr Pradeep Banandur, head of the epidemiology department at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) and a member of Covid Technical Advisory Committee.
The samples have been sent for genomic sequencing, he added. In Bengaluru, Dr KV Thrilok Chandra, Special Commissioner (Health), Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, said the genomic sequencing of previous clusters did not find any different variant from what was already circulating.
They all belonged to the Delta variant. On the clusters over the past two days, he said, “We get such clusters once in a while, but they are one-off cases. The week-on-week positivity rate has not increased. But we need to be watchful.”
Meanwhile, the state health department is proposing changing the testing strategy. Recently, on the advice of TAC after Covid cases started to reduce, the department had not only gone for target testing, but also limited the numbers to 30,000 in Bengaluru and 60,000 in the State. Now the department wants to reintroduce random testing to identify asymptomatic patients, which could be, according to Randeep , more problematic.