SDPI condemns Ravi Poojary's threat to Lawyer Mehmood Pracha

Mangaluru, Apr 3: The laboratory at District Wenlock Hospital has initiated trial for Covid 19 testing, close on the heels of receiving permission from state government.

Doctors, elected representatives and stakeholders had repeatedly demanded that a laboratory should be set up in the port city. Without the lab, the samples were sent either to Shivamogga or to Bengaluru for testing. When Heath Minister Sriramulu had visited Mangaluru on March 17, he had promised a lab in the city for testing of the samples.

Accordingly, the government gave permission for starting the laboratory at Wenlock Hospital. The process of registering the lab with Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) will be completed shortly. The laboratory will be fully operational only after it is registered.

Thiruvananthapuram, Apr 24: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday said that there is no community spread or the expected phase three spread of coronavirus in the state so far but the threat continues.

Speaking to media persons here on Thursday, Vijayan said that Kasargod, Kannur, Kozhikode, and Malappuram districts will be in the red zone with full restrictions.

"All the other ten districts in the State will be in the orange zone. With the detection of new cases today, the status of Kottayam and Idukki districts have been changed from green to orange. The district administration will decide on the hotspot areas to be closed," he said.

He said there would be an increase in the number of random tests in the red zones.

"In an effort to confirm that there is no community spread in the State, random antibody tests would be conducted among health workers, police personnel, home delivery persons, volunteers and migrant labourers," he added.

The Chief Minister said that COVID-19 labs set up at the Pariyaram Government Medical College at Kannur and the Kottayam Medical College have got the approval from the ICMR for coronavirus testing. The lab at Kannur Medical College will start functioning from Friday.

The UV sterilised lab, spread over 2,200 sq ft is equipped with four real-time PCR machines. In the first phase, this lab will be able to do 15 tests per day, which will be gradually increased to conduct 60 tests in the next phase.

"With the opening of these two new labs, tests to detect COVID-19 will be conducted in 14 government labs in Kerala. Apart from this, there are two private labs also in Kerala which are doing these tests. Since the number of coronavirus cases is again increasing in the State, the government has decided to procure ten real-time PCR machines to ramp up testing," he added.

Mangaluru, Jun 12: A huge crowd gathered for the grand opening of the newly built 175-metre-long two-lane bridge across Phalguni River on National Highway 169 near Gurupura on the outskirts of the city today.

Even as the photos of the bridge inauguration ceremony went viral on social media, netizens took the elected representatives and the district administration to task for flouting safety norms at a time when the coronavirus cases are continuing to mount in coastal Karnataka.

The bridge was completed in a record time of 15 months. Dakshina Kannada MP and State BJP President Nalin Kumar Kateel and district in-charge Minister Kota Srinivas Poojari inaugurated the bridge in the presence of Mangaluru City North MLA Y. Bharath Shetty and others.

The bridge has come as a breather to thousands of travellers between Mangaluru-Moodbidri-Karkala on the busy NH. The age-old steel bridge had become dilapidated and was a cause for concern for road users. The highway is also under the process of getting widened to four lanes.

The bridge was constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 30 crore by contractor Sudhakar Shetty of Mugrodi Construction. Work started in February last and the contractor had time till February next.

While the two-lane carriageway is 16 metres wide, the bridge has 2.5-metre-wide pedestrian paths on both the sides. New approach roads of 500 metres each were also part of the project.