At least 13 students of an engineering college in Pune city of Maharashtra have tested positive for coronavirus, an official from the institution said on Monday.
All these students, currently in the third year of the engineering course, are "largely asymptomatic" and isolated at home, said Prashant Dave, registrar of the MIT World Peace University, to which the institution is affiliated.
"As we follow strict measures, we screen our students at the main gate (of the institution). During the screening, one student was found to be having runny nose and he was immediately sent back and his parents were asked to get his RT-PCR test done," the official said.
After the student's test report came out positive for the coronavirus, his close contacts were traced, he said.
"A group of 25 students, including the index case (the first student who tested positive), was part of a team which was preparing for a national level competition and working together on an all-terrain vehicle at the college workshop. So, all the close contacts were traced, isolated and subjected to the RT-PCR tests. So far, 13 students have tested positive, eight are negative and results of four students are awaited," the official said.
All the infected students are in home isolation and they are largely asymptomatic, he said.
"We are keeping a close watch on their health and are constantly in touch with the families," the official said.
All the 25 students who underwent the tests were fully vaccinated, he said.
As a precautionary measure, the offline classes of this particular batch have been shifted to the online mode, he added.
Earlier last week, Maharashtra's Takli Dhokeshwar, at least 51 people including 48 students tested positive for COVID-19 at a school in Ahmednagar.
A few days back, 19 students from the residential school in Parner tehsil had tested positive for the viral infection.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra continued to witness a rise in the daily coronavirus infection cases as it registered 1,648 new cases on Sunday, which pushed the overall tally to 66,57,888, while the death of 17 patients took the toll to 1,41,433, the health department said.
The daily caseload in Maharashtra has been rising over the last few days. The state had reported 1,485 coronavirus cases on Saturday, 1,410 on Friday, 1,179 on Thursday, 1,201 on Wednesday, 825 on Tuesday and 544 on Monday.
(With agency inputs)
