Days after reports of 25 students of the Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology (VSSUT) at Burla testing Covid-19 positive triggered an alarm, the Health Department on Tuesday said the students had tested positive because of faulty testing kits.
Health Secretary Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra said, “Not a single student of VSSUT has tested positive for the virus. The test reports which had come out earlier were erroneous as the antigen kits were faulty. When the same students underwent RT-PCR test, their reports came negative.”
The test kits would be withdrawn and the Health Department would verify the same. Besides, the district administration is also likely to withdraw the precautionary measures, including declaration of containment zone, said sources.
When the students’ reports came out positive, the VSSUT authorities had postponed the examinations scheduled to begin from March 1 until further orders. Besides, the Sambalpur Municipal Corporation had announced a shutdown of the institution and 11 hostels of the university were declared containment zones.