Thirty-five students of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER)-Calcutta’s Mohanpur campus near Kalyani in Nadia have been detected Covid positive during a mass RT-PCR test.

The outbreak has prompted authorities to shut down the institute till December 28.

Five faculty members who reside on campus also tested positive and are in isolation. The teachers paid for their tests.

The infected students — all asymptomatic, said IISER’s dean of students’ affairs Balaram Mukhopadhyay — have been quarantined in the visitor’s complex under the supervision of the institute’s medical unit.

The institution’s authorities will conduct random Covid tests on 25 per cent of its students every month starting January till the time the pandemic is effectively over.

Mass RT-PCR tests were conducted on 530 students, including 443 hostel inmates, with the support of the institute’s students’ affairs council and Covid volunteers in collaboration with a diagnostic facility.

“Conducting random tests on students on a rotational basis has become necessary to avert a possible outbreak of Covid,” IISER’s dean of students’ affairs Mukhopadhyay said.

A few Covid infections reported among students early in December led the IISER administration to conduct the mass Covid test on campus.

Entry to the research complex has also been restricted and only a few students are allowed to enter to maintain live stocks. Even the dining facility at the canteen has been replaced with takeaway food packets.

The IISER, which in a student-friendly gesture had waived off part of the semester fees and provided laptops and data packs to its less privileged students for ease in online learning, also indicated that resumption of physical classes would not be possible before March.

The authorities have asked first-year students to stay at home and join online classes from January.