BHUBANESWAR: For the first time in over two months, recovery cases in Odisha is higher than Covid-19 infected in a single day.
While 79 fresh positive cases, including a doctor from Cuttack, were reported from 15 districts in the last 24 hours, 84 patients recovered and discharged from Covid hospitals. This comes a day after the State recorded its biggest single-day spike of 103 cases.
The Cuttack’s doctor is a paediatrician and is the first case of a medical practitioner testing positive in the State.
Though the source of infection is yet to be ascertained, officials said, he had been to his relative’s house in Kendrapara district.
With the new cases, the total number of confirmed cases soared to 1,517. The number of active cases stands at 777 after recovery of 732 persons and seven deaths. Of the 3,819 tests conducted in the State in the last 24 hours, 16 positive cases were detected in Cuttack, followed by 14 in Balangir, eight in Keonjhar, seven in Kandhamal, six in Kendrapara, five in Ganjam, four each in Balasore, Khurda and Puri, three each in Dhenkanal and Nayagarh, two in Jajpur and one each in Angul, Jharsuguda and Sonepur.
Sonepur was the new addition taking to the number of affected districts to 29. Only Rayagada district is left with no confirmed case so far.Among the highest 16 cases detected in Cuttack district, three are Dubai returnees. While five others had returned from Maharashtra and three from West Bengal, three had travelled back from Andhra Pradesh and one from Tamil Nadu.Most of the returnees tested positive in Ganjam, Khurda and Nayagarh are from Surat whereas positive cases in Kandhamal, Angul and Keonjhar have been detected among the returnees from Tamil Nadu.
Contact tracing begins
The health officials have started contact tracing of a city-based doctor who tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday. A resident of CDA-Sector-6, he works as a Paediatrician at City Hospital. Besides attending OPD of City Hospital, the doctor also used to treat patients in his clinic at Kendrapara and residence. However, he was in Kendrapara when he complained of symptoms and throat swab was collected for coronavirus test, said a health official.
“Though it is an uphill task on our part to trace his contacts, we have started tracing his contacts to initiate necessary measures and contain spread of the virus,” said a health official. While the Paediatric OPD of the hospital and his clinics have been shutdown, his residence at CDA-Sector-6 has been sanitised. After initial tracing, health officials have collected throat swabs from 20 persons including doctors, nurses and pharmacists of the hospital besides his family members and sent those for examination, said City Health Officer Satya Brata Mohapatra.
“We have not established any local transmission in the case as the doctor has a travel history to Kendrapara. There is no necessity for declaration of containment zone but we have started aggressive contact tracing of the patient,” said CMC Commissioner Ananya Das. As many as 24 persons tested positive for the virus in Cuttack district on Tuesday