Health

AMU reports 34 COVID deaths in 18 days, VC urges ICMR to find variant circulating in campus

Aligarh: Aligarh Muslim University Vice-Chancellor Tariq Mansoor has written a letter to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), urging it to find out if a particular COVID variant is circulating around the campus.

34 serving and retired faculty members, who were living in the university campus and adjoining localities, have succumbed to COVID and coronavirus-like symptoms.

In the letter, Mansoor mentioned that 16 serving and 18 retired teachers besides other AMU employees have died due to COVID-19 in the past 18 days.

He further wrote that in all likelihood, “a particular variant may be circulating in areas around the AMU campus and surrounding localities, which has led to these deaths” and also underlined the need for a study to curb the virus’ spread. Notably, news agency IANS has reported that Mansoor’s elder brother passed away a few days ago, and on Saturday, the dean of the Law faculty died.

He added that the microbiology laboratory at Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College here is sending samples to the New Delhi-based Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology laboratory for genome sequencing.

In the meantime, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College principal Shahid Ali Siddiqui told reporters that 25 doctors at the hospital have found to be infected with COVID in the past fortnight.

Presently, just three doctors are under treatment as others have recovered from the infection, he added.

Notably, Professor Shadaab Khan, the head of the Medicine Department at the college, died from COVID last week.

As per Siddiqui, the hospital is battling a shortage of medical oxygen and completely dependent on its three liquid oxygen plants. For the last 12 days, the hospital has failed to get even a single oxygen cylinder from outside despite continuous efforts, he added.

Meanwhile, IANS has mentioned social activist Prof Jasim Mohammad as saying, “The university administration had failed, the medical college system has collapsed. The VC has not even bothered to ask for Oxygen. He has not sought help from any quarters. Maybe a hundred have already died and in another one month, there could be another 100 deaths, if conditions do not improve.”

 

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