Five students at UoK test positive; final exams to continue
View(s):While five undergraduates at the Kelaniya University have tested positive for COVID-19, the ongoing final year exams at the University’s humanities and social sciences faculties will continue as scheduled, a university official said.
Issuing a statement on Friday, the university acknowledged that five undergraduates from the Humanities Faculty had tested positive after random PCR tests were conducted on 20 undergraduates from a group due to leave for a field research on February 1.
Three of the infected undergraduates had been staying in the university’s hostels while the other two were lodged in boarding houses outside the university. The five students were placed in a special hostel until they could be taken for treatment centres by health authorities.
Three hostels where the infected students and their close contacts had stayed had been isolated.
The university official said, based on instructions from the university’s chief medical officer, 24 close contacts of the infected students were subjected to rapid antigen tests on Friday.
All of them came back negative. The same test would be conducted on the students’ secondary contacts tomorrow (February 8). None of the five infected students had sat for any written exams held by the university recently, the university official said.
Having reviewed the situation, the university administration had decided that the final year exams of the humanities and social sciences faculties, which began on February 1, would continue at the university premises under quarantine regulations as planned.
Accordingly, students currently staying at hostels that had been isolated would be allowed to sit for the final exams inside their respective hostels. Arrangements had also been made to supply the isolated hostels with food and other necessary items, the official said.
The final year exams were due to end on February 23. The university administration had made arrangements to keep the close contacts of the infected students separated from other students until the end of this period, the official said. (SJ)