After at least 40 serving and retired teachers have died in recent weeks due to Covid or Covid-like symptoms, the Vice Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) Tariq Mansoor said vaccine hesitancy played a big role in the spread of coronavirus in the campus.

In an open letter to the AMU community, the VC said that "Vaccine hesitancy has played a significant role in the incidence of a large number of cases of Covid-19 among university employees and their families, and consequent morbidity and mortality.”

"All studies indicate that vaccines provide protection against serious disease, hospitalizations and deaths," he said.

Two vaccination centres are currently operational at the campus. Recently, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had visited the AMU campus and pointed out that vaccination could have saved lives, reports India Today.

Almost 40 current and former faculty members of AMU have died due to Covid-19 or related symptoms. The Institute had sent samples from its Covid-19 testing laboratory to CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology for viral genome sequencing, as it suspected a new Covid-19 variant.

Earlier, Vice-Chancellor Tariq Mansoor had stated that the deceased faculty members, retired teachers and employees used to live on or near the campus as he went on to claim that a viral variant might be circulating in Aligarh's Civil Lines area.

As per reports, around 30,000 students study in AMU. Around 16,000 of them stay in 19 hostels. There are about 5,000 non-teaching staff and around 1,700 teaching staff at AMU.