IIT Kanpur: COVID-19 plan put to use after health centre staff tested positive

NEW DELHI: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur has drawn up a five-point COVID-19 management strategy for the campus which involves contact tracing, quarantine procedure, covid testing, hospitalisation and payments and campus health monitoring.

The document titled “COVID Management Strategy”, approved by the director Abhay Karandikar, was emailed to the campus community on July 12 and found almost immediate application as within two days, a health centre staff member tested positive for COVID-19.

The plan will also follow the guidelines issued by the ministry of health and family welfare, Indian Council for Medical Research, the district chief medical officer (CMO) and the city administration. The campus health centre is critical to the plan and was put in charge of monitoring the health of all the residents and if anyone displays flu-like symptoms, they will be considered as a COVID suspect.

IIT Kanpur COVID-19 cases

On July 14, Karandikar wrote to the IIT Kanpur community informing them that a health centre staff member had tested positive for COVID-19 that day. “He resides outside the campus and has been admitted to Naraina Hospital. The staff member has not been attending the HC since last week as he was advised to go on leave due to fever. Those HC staff members who came in contact with him have been advised for home quarantine for 14 days,” Karandikar wrote.

However, the management strategy was prompted by another case on campus. Karandikar informed the campus community on July 8 that a resident of RA Hostel, who had left the campus, had tested positive upon returning to their home state. “On the advice of the city administration and as a precautionary measure, the access to the RA hostel has been restricted (entry/exit), and the hostel premise has been sanitized today. Contact tracing and screening for the individuals at risk are being undertaken as per the protocol of the city administration,” he wrote. Over July 9 and 10, over 200 hostel residents were screened.

Contact-tracing, testing and quarantine

According to the strategy document, the RT-PCR based testing will be recommended only for symptomatic cases and the testing will be through COVID screening center at GSVM Medical College, Kanpur.

For those testing positive, contact tracing will be initiated. Every person to test positive “will be required to provide names and contact details (place of work, telephone number, etc) of individuals with whom he/she shared the space (workspace/room/house/common space, etc) in the last seven days”, says the document. Individuals identified through this will be considered the “primary contacts” and the health centre will “approach them for confirmation and health screening”.

IIT Kanpur has insisted on a 14-day quarantine for all primary contacts. The details of COVID positive cases will be available on the campus intranet and all the residents can access the details.

However, for asymptomatic patients are not required to undergo testing unless they are assessed by a doctor for comorbidity.

Institute will also arrange on-site sample collection service with a nominal charge and those are found tested COVID positive will be referred to the COVID care hospitals

IIT Kanpur has also established contact with Naraina Medical College and Hospital (Panki) and Rama Medical College and Hospital (Chaubepur) for handling “asymptomatic positive and mild to moderate positive cases”. Residents unable to pay for treatment will be referred to the government-run Ursula Hospital. All severe cases will have to be referred to the Government-run L3 COVID Care at Hallet Hospital.

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