Ullal Dargah's new president Rasheed Haji proves majority again

Bengaluru, Mar 10: With concerns growing by the day, the Karnataka government is readying three more labs to test throat swab samples.

Currently, only two labs in Bengaluru — National Institute of Virology and Virus Research and Diagnostics Laboratory (VRDL) lab attached to Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute — are categorised biosafety level 2+, a requirement for coronavirus tests.

Now, the government is working on upgrading three more labs, one each in the government medical colleges at Hassan, Mysuru and Shivamogga. “The labs will be ready within one week,” the authorities said.

Currently, the labs are testing only throat swab samples of suspected patients and taking 24 hours to give the results. “A patient’s blood sample will be collected only if he or she tests positive for covid-19 infection in the first throat swab sample.

While earlier the state would send all samples of suspected coronavirus cases to NIV, Pune, the two labs were upgraded to biosafety level 2+ in mid-February.

Kasaragod, Mar 23: The district administration on Monday decided to abandon efforts to map out the movement details of the NRI who came from Dubai recently and came into contact with many in North Kerala.

The district has been completely locked down since Monday morning, on the directive of the Central Government. Prohibitory orders have been slapped in the district since Sunday night to restrict socialisation of the people.

As the person now in isolation have allegedly been non-cooperative, the authorities were finding it difficult to sketch out a rote map as his movement and socialisation has been so vast and wide since his arrival here on March 12.

The middle aged and popular NRI who landed at Karipur airpprt on March 11 had been in Calicut till midnight prior to boarding the Maveli Express to make it to his hometown Kasaragod, which is 160 kms away from Calicut. He had come into contact with very many, including two MLAs of the district, prior to getting tested positive and getting isolated in the hospital.

Bengaluru, April 3: The ASHA worker, who was attacked by locals in Sadiq layout area in Bengaluru while conducting a coronavirus survey, on Friday expressed satisfaction with police action in the matter.

"I am happy that five people have been arrested for attacking me while I was conducting a survey in view of COVID-19 in Sadiq layout area in Bengaluru on April 1. We serve the people and work for the betterment of the society," Krishnaveni, the ASHA worker, told news agency here.

ASHA workers, who were deployed to spread awareness about coronavirus and identify suspected cases, were allegedly attacked by a group of locals in the area on Wednesday.

"We had been conducting surveys for the past 14 days ever since a positive coronavirus case was identified in the area. A person came and asked why we were gathering information. We informed him that a positive case was identified in the area," Krishnaveni said.

"They made an announcement from the mosque not to give any information to us. Afterwards, several people came out of their houses and started attacking us," she added.

Police initiated an investigation and have made arrests in the matter.

This comes as the country is under a 21-day lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus, which has claimed the lives of at least 56 people and infected over 2,000 people.