Hyderabad: In one of the biggest cluster outbreaks of Covid-19 in Telangana, 47 students, and one teacher, at the Mahatma Jyotiba Phule BC Welfare Residential School at Muthangi village in Sangareddy district, were found to have contracted Coronavirus. While 42 students and the teacher tested positive on Sunday, five more students were also found to have caught the disease on Monday.
The Sangareddy district medical and health officer Dr Gayathri Devi told Deccan Chronicle that all the 491 students and 27 staff at the school in Muthangi have been tested. Students found to have caught Covid-19 have been isolated and health officials were watching over their health.
This takes the total number of people, who were infected with Covid at education institutions in Telangana this month, to 107.
While 29 students caught Covid-19 at a government-run residential school in Wyra town of Khammam on November 21, another 30 students and five staff contracted the virus at Mahindra University in the city on November 27.
The Covid-19 outbreak in Muthangi, the largest at an educational institution in the state, forced education minister Sabitha Indra Reddy to hold an emergency meeting of top officials on Monday. She ordered officials to ensure that every student wears a mask while at school, and all teachers are fully vaccinated.
The minister also sought to reassure parents and said they need not fear sending their children to schools, as instructions were given to schools to ensure all precautions are taken for the safety of children.
Incidentally, Director of Public Health and Family Services Dr G Srinivasa Rao, had said on Saturday that in the six to seven months that schools have been open, only 168 students were found to be Covid-19 positive. Only six schools had more than six cases each, he had said. Children, he had said, can be sent to schools without any fear.
