Gujarat: IIM-A coronavirus case count rises to 45 over last two weeks

Five more people have tested

positive for coronavirus at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A), taking the number of the infected students, faculty and staff to 45 over the last two weeks, the institute said on Sunday.

Out of these 45 people who have tested positive for coronavirus since March 12, 44 are currently in quarantine, it said.

These 44 people include 31 students, a faculty member, and 12 staff members and others, as per the COVID-19 dashboard of the IIM-A.

With the five additions, the total number of the infected people at the IIM-A reached 172 since September 8, 2020, it said.

The COVID-19 cases started surging at the IIM-A from the second week of March after a student tested positive on its campus after a gap of nearly a month.

Within ten days, ten more people tested positive, and the number went up to 46 by March 27, it said.

In the last 208 days, the institute had conducted 3,792 tests- both the rapid antigen and RT-PCR- for detection of coronavirus.

A senior official said most of the cases at the IIM-A are asymptomatic.

Visits to the campus are restricted and those coming to stay with the students or faculty from outside the campus are required to submit a self-declaration form and stay quarantined for a stipulatedtime, he said.

"We have crested an isolation dorm for positive persons. We are doing testing after contact tracing. We also carried outvaccination for most of our employees," said CAO, IIM-A, Manoj Bhatt.

Ahmedabad city is seeing a huge surge in coronavirus positive cases, reporting 601 new infections on Saturday, which took the overall tally to 65,377. The city now has 1,694 active cases, as per the civic body.

Besides the IIIM-A, the Gandhinagar campus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) has also seen a rise in infections.