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Covid-19: Yogi Adityanath visits AMU amid concerns of a ‘new strain’
Around 15 faculty members, 25 retired teaching faculty, 15 staff members, and 2 school teachers from AMU have died in the last 20-25 days due to Covid-19.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath visited Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) on Thursday to review the current Covid-19 (coronavirus) situation in the university, after 50 current and retired staff succumbed to the infection, reportedly due to the prevalence of a new variant of coronavirus.
Around 15 faculty members, 25 retired teaching faculty, 15 staff members, and 2 school teachers from AMU have died in the last 20-25 days due to Covid-19. Vice-chancellor Tariq Mansoor wrote to Balram Bhargava, director of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), urging him to probe whether a new variant of Covid-19 was circulating in the civil lines area of Aligarh where the AMU campus is located.
“This is to bring into your notice that 16 AMU faculty members, a number of retired teachers and employees in other categories, who were living in the university campus and adjoining localities have succumbed to Covid-19. This is giving rise to a suspicion that a particular viral variant may be circulating in the Civil Lines area of Aligarh in which AMU and many adjoining localities are situated,” the VC said in his letter.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MP Kunwar Danish Ali also wrote to PM Modi on Wednesday urging him to send a Central team to help fight the “virus variant” wreaking havoc in AMU.
"I, therefore, humbly request you to immediately send the central team to the AMU campus and provide medical assistance or allocate sufficient funds to Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College to fight the new Covid variant and save precious lives in the campus and surrounding areas," Ali wrote.
The deaths have also triggered a slew of criticism directed at the AMU administration. Former president of AMU Students’ Union, Faizul Hasan, demanded a high-level inquiry into the deaths. Students and teachers told HT on Tuesday that panic has spread around the campus and that there is a shortage of doctors at the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College (JNMC), which is affiliated with AMU. The head of medicine at JNMC, Prof Shadab Ahmad Khan, is amongst those who succumbed to Covid in the last 3-4 weeks. Allegations of negligence have however been rejected by JNMC principal Prof Shahid Ali Siddiqi.
The chief minister is scheduled to visit Mathura and Agra to review the Covid-19 situation there. Uttar Pradesh reported 18,125 new cases of Covid-19 and 329 deaths on Wednesday.
