Mysuru: After three students of Morarji Desai Residential School in Hanur taluk, Chamarajanagar, tested positive for Covid-19, personnel of the health department in the border district have ramped up testing across hostels of residential schools. Keen on detecting the infection when it is still in its early stages, when it is much easier to treat the patients
The students were admitted to the hostels only after they furnished a certificate confirming they were not infected with Covid-19. In the past week, apart from the trio from Moraji Desai Residential School, two from Adarsha Government Model Residential School in Yelandur tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The students displayed symptoms of fever, cold, cough before they were subjected to a test for Covid-19. Since the schools were reopened for classes six to ten only three weeks ago, the district administration is understandably worried.
All the 398 students at the Adarsha school were tested as part of a random drive, and two of them tested positive for the novel coronavirus. “Instructions have been issued to all the taluk health officer in Chamarajanagar to carry out a similar random testing drive in all schools in Hanur, Kollegal, Chamarajanagr, Gundlupet and Yelandur. The department has already tested students in 16 residential schools,” Chamarajanagar district health officer Dr KM Vishweshwaraiah told TOI.
Chamarajanagar’s in-charge deputy director of public instruction Manjunath said, “I have inspected both the residential schools where the students tested positive. Those heading residential schools in the district have been advised to direct students displaying symptoms of Covid-19 to undergo a test compulsorily. But we have heard complaints of students being reluctant to subject themselves to a test.”