59 Andhra University engineering students test positive for coronavirus

Visakhapatnam: The second phase of Covid-19 is spreading fast in Visakhapatnam district. On Friday, 59 students of Andhra University Engineering College living in hostels tested positive.

District medical and health officer Dr P Suryanarayana told DC that an asymptomatic student was living in the hostel. After he tested positive, the health officials collected samples of 850 students, of which 450 results came out by the evening. Of them, 59 tested positive and the results of samples of the remaining 400 students would be known on Saturday.

Andhra University authorities, with the help of medical personnel, created two hostel blocks for isolation and four blocks for quarantine. Source said the vice chancellor would soon decide on declaring a holiday based on the test results of other students.

“Until tests were conducted on all the students, it would not be wise to declare a holiday. The authorities should see that all the students remained in the hostel until tests were completed,” the DMHO said.

In Vizianagaram district, seven students of a high school in Nidugallu village in Seethanagaram mandal tested positive. Tests were conducted on 57 students.
Visakhapatnam registered 170 cases on Friday, of which 59 were reported from Andhra University and remaining from Madhurawada and Dondaparthy in the heart of the city. The district moved to second place in the highest number of positive cases.

Guntur reported the highest number of cases during the last 24 hours, with 176 testing positive.

The total active cases in Vizag stood at 647. In all, 60,335 positive cases were registered since the outbreak of the virus last year. The death toll remained at 544.