Maharashtra: 47 students, 5 teachers of Latur school test positive

AURANGABAD: The Swami Vivekanand Integration English school, a private school in Latur, and its hostel facility have been sealed by the civic administration as a precautionary measure after at least 47 students and five teachers of the institution tested Covid-19 positive.
Latur Municipal Corporation’s health officer Mahesh Patil on Tuesday said the number of positive cases at the school may go up in the days to come.
“As many as 36 Class X students, 10 Class IX students and one from Class VI have so far tested positive for Covid-19. Most of these students are asymptomatic and, therefore, we fear they might have spread the infection to others. Moreover, five teachers of the school have also tested positive,” he said.
The infected students hail from Aurangabad, Kalamnuri in Hingoli district, Pandharkawada in Yavatmal district among other places and had been staying at the school-run hostel facility.
“First, a girl student developed a fever and was found to be infected on February 20. As a part of her contact-tracing, we tested 14 other students and 13 of them were also found positive. Later, we shifted the testing facility to the school itself carried out RT-PCR tests of all students and staff,” Patil said.
About 410 students and staff members of the school have undergone Covid testing. The civic administration, as a precautionary measure, has kept all those who tested negative also in quarantine. The school authorities could not be reached as they too were in quarantine.
Latur municipal commissioner Amant Mittal said there was no need to panic. “The classes for students of classes V and above are still on. The incident of mass infection of students should be seen in isolation as of now. We will review the decision to continue school functioning if needed,” he said.
Maharashtra medical education minister Amit Deshmukh, who isalso Latur guardian minister, said: Latur district has reported 24,947 Covid cases so far, including 23,897 recovered patients and 702 fatalities.