At least 50 students of the Thrissur medical college hospital in Kerala tested positive for Covid-19 on Monday impacting the normal work of the hospital, said district medical authorities.
More than 100 other students who came in contact with the infected have been asked to quarantine. Among the infected, 40 are MBBS students and 10 post-graduate students. Later students' hostels were shut down.
A test drive was carried out at the college after an employee of a coffee house situated on the premises of the hospital died a couple of days ago due to Covid-19 complications. The coffee house was later closed and 13 of its workers also tested positive. Hospital authorities said most of the infected students had received both doses of vaccine and the majority of them are asymptomatic.
Most of the students were working in Covid wards and their sudden infection affected some of the wards, said a senior doctor who did not want to be named. 'We started an inquiry about how the hospital has turned into a major cluster of the virus. The health department has also sought a report from the hospital,' she said.
The country's first Covid-19 case was reported from Thrissur in 2020 January in a China-returned medical student. She was admitted to Thrissur medical college hospital for almost a month. Last week, she again tested positive and is undergoing quarantine at her home. 'We suspect the presence of a strong Delta variant in some pockets of the district. Samples of some of the infected were sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune for more studies,' she said.
A pandemic hotspot, the state has been reporting at least one-third of total cases of the country for almost a month. On Sunday, it reported 13,956 cases with a test positivity rate of 10.69 % and its active caseload also crossed 1.25 lakh, according to statistics released by the state health ministry.