As many 53 more students of a school at Sargipali in Sundargarh district have tested positive for Covid-19, informed the authorities on Wednesday evening.
With this, the number of Covid positive patients at the school rose to 89. All the positive students have been kept in isolation in the hostel.
The district administration has stepped up contact tracing and will collect the swab samples of the left out students and staff of the school.
Initially, 10 students of the school showed mild symptoms and following rapid antigen test, all of them were found positive. Later, during contact tracing, swab samples of 160 students were collected and sent for RT-PCR test and 36 of them were found to have contracted the disease, informed Chief District Medical Officer (CDMO), Dr SK Mishra.
On November, In Sundergarh 53 Girl Students were Tested Positive For Covid-19 and School Closed For A Week.
“We insisted the principal of the school to isolate the infected students in the hostel but their parents demanded to take over their ward’s custody and took them home after submitting written undertakings,” added Mishra.
Rapid response teams (RRTs) would keep a watch on the health condition of the students in home isolation for at least 10 days. The health condition of the infected students is stable, said Mishra.
“The access to the school and hostel has been closed. Arrangements will be done for testing all the staff and students of the school and they will be vaccinated on a priority basis,” informed Nikhil Pawan Kalyan, Sundargarh District Collector.
On the other hand, 1,897 new Covid-19 cases that were reported from different parts of the State on thurseday, including 258 children from 0-18 years, tested positive for the virus.