Anjali Bali, a teacher at Sanskriti, said the school decided to remain closed Friday as a precautionary measure, but since the student had tested negative, it would reopen Monday.

Of the 96 new swine flu cases Friday, Maharashtra alone reported 53 cases, the highest so far in the country. Of these, Pune saw 37 new cases, two of whom were doctors. Authorities said people coming out voluntarily to get themselves tested is the reason behind the spurt in the number of cases.

While a majority of the cases in Delhi are contact cases, in Gurgaon, one out of six new cases has travel history. In Pune, 36 of the 37 cases are contact cases. The 37th patient had returned from Thailand last week.

In Mumbai, a 12-year-old girl and her 14-year-old sister had travelled from the US. The rest of the 14 cases are contact cases. In Bangalore, all the 10 cases are contact cases. Of the three cases in Mangalore, two have travel history to Malaysia.

In Hyderabad, three of the four cases reported have foreign travel history. Of the four cases in Chennai, a 23-year-old man is a contact case. Two of the other three cases are from a family who travelled from the US, and the fourth patient had returned from Britain.

Of the three cases in Kolkata, two do not have any travel history. The third is a Japanese citizen. The single patient in Calicut had returned from Dubai.

Though the disease is spreading fast, Health Secretary Naresh Dayal said there was no need to panic as the government is taking all steps to control the virus.