Panic broke out among students and officials of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya here when 35 persons, including 29 students, tested positive for Covid-19 within a week of a parent-teacher meeting.

School authorities claimed two students had tested positive last week, prompting the school to organise an RTPCR test camp on campus on December 20 and 21. Sources said school authorities had sent affected students to home isolation, however, they were yet to make any decision about continuing classes.

On the first day, 215 persons, including students, teachers and non-teaching officials were tested, of which 29 students tested positive. On the subsequent day, six more persons tested Covid positive.

“This should be decided by the district administration,” an official of the school said, adding that a meeting in this regard is underway. A medical team led by CMOH Nadia Swapan Das visited the school and instructed authorities to ensure standard protective protocol so that the disease does not spread further.

"We have spoken to the school authorities and are monitoring the condition of the affected students who were sent to home isolation. All the students are fine and asymptomatic," Das said.

The school resumed offline classes, complying with the Bengal government’s direction from November 16. 324 students of Classes IX, X, XI and XII joined the residential school run by the centre’s Department of School Education and Literacy under the Ministry of Education.

School principal Mausumi Nag said, “It is not clear how the students got infected”.

The principal, however, did not rule out the possibility of the virus being spread among students during the parent-teacher meeting on December 7.

“A good number of parents from different areas of the state attended the meeting, the principal told The Telegraph, adding that protocol had been followed.

In the backdrop of the highly transmissible Omicron variant of Covid spreading across the country, health officials and doctors expressed concern about so many students testing Covid positive.

“We have asked the local administration to scan the history of the affected students and others if they had come in contact with persons who might have arrived from suspected countries where the Omicron variant has been spreading,” a health official said.