The number of cases in the COVID-19 cluster at IIT Madras rose to 171 with another 26 persons testing positive for the infection on Thursday.
Health teams were all set to wrap up saturation testing on the campus of IIT Madras and will focus on symptomatic persons.
After the cluster surfaced on April 19, the department along with the Greater Chennai Corporation took up saturation testing. There are about 7,490 students in the 19 hostels on the campus.
“So far, a total of 6,650 samples were tested. Of these, 171 returned positive for COVID-19. The overall positivity rate is 2.6%. About 1,000 more samples remain to be tested after which saturation testing will be completed on the campus,” Health Secretary J. Radhakrishnan told reporters on Thursday.
Due to saturation testing, the number of cases might increase for the next two days after which there could be a fall, he said. “The persons who tested positive were isolated in two buildings and this has prevented further transmission,” he said. Discharge of more patients would begin from Friday.
He reiterated that no new variant of COVID-19 was identified in the samples from the cluster sent for whole genome sequencing (WGS). “Only BA.2, a sub-variant of Omicron, was identified in the samples sent for WGS,” he said.
