As many as 39 students and five staff members from three different educational institutions in central Kashmir's Budgam district tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, prompting the authorities to shut them for at least five days, officials said.
The positive cases were found during random sampling at these intuitions, the officials said. At Government Higher Secondary School in Hafroo Batapora in Nagam area of the district, 33 students and four staff members tested positive, Chief Education Officer of Budgam, Syed Muhammad Amin said. Amin said the medical teams conducted random testing on 584 students of the school. He said a contact tracing programme has been initiated and the family members of the positive cases would also be tested. The school has been ordered to remain closed for 10 days, the official added. He said random testing was also done at an orphanage in Beerwah area of the district and samples of six students there came back as positive.
The institution has been closed for five days, he added. Amin said a staff member from Delhi Public School, Budgam, also tested positive a day after two staff members of the school had tested positive for the virus. He said DPS has also been closed for five days and contact tracing of the positive persons was going on.
The education officer said the department in cooperation with health authorities on Thursday started vaccination of all the teaching and non-teaching staff in the district and it will be concluded in three days. On Wednesday, at least 36 students of primary classes of Noorani Public School in Khull area of Kulgam tested positive, while in the adjacent Anantnag district, 14 students at Government High School in Kathsoo tested positive for the novel coronavirus. In another case, two staff members at Kothibagh Higher Secondary School in Srinagar also tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday.
