BHUBANESWAR: With no clarity on how many persons from Odisha attended the congregation at Nizamuddin Markaz in New Delhi that has set off several Covid clusters in the country, the Odisha Government was on its toes throughout on Tuesday.
The core monitoring teams spread across the State went on a search spree to identify people who had returned from the event after six deaths in Telangana and 24 positive cases in Delhi put the congregation in the spotlight.
While four persons - two from Sundargarh and one each from Cuttack and Berhampur - admitted to have attended the event have been traced, 15 others are under quarantine at the national capital. More than 100 tracking teams have been engaged to trace others, if any.
A senior health official said though there is no specific data on the number of persons who attended the Tabligh-e-Jamaat, so far, information on 19 persons from Odisha has been received.“Four persons from Odisha returned in the third week of March while information from Delhi says 15 are in quarantine. Search operations are on to identify and trace others since they may be carriers of the virus,” sources said.
Of the 15, who are among hundreds quarantined at Tabligh-e-Jamaat headquarters and Government facilities, nine are from Khurda, two from Cuttack and one each from Koraput and Puri districts.
One from Khurda and another from Kendrapara are in isolation ward of a Delhi hospital and their swab samples have been sent for test.
Those who returned have been kept in different isolation wards in their respective districts while their close contacts are in Government quarantine facilities.The man from Cuttack is admitted to SCB Medical College and Hospital. Swab samples of all have been sent for tests, the official said.
“Tracking of people who returned to Odisha after attending the event is on. Those who returned recently have been identified and kept under quarantine,” Government chief spokesperson on COVID-19 Subroto Bagchi said.