BHUBANESWAR: In yet another massive spike, the new Covid cases breached the 10,000 mark in Odisha with 10,431 people testing positive for the virus in the last 24 hours. Eleven people succumbed to the disease during the period.
This was for the first time that the State recorded over 10,000 fresh cases on a day since the beginning of the pandemic in March last year.
With a test positivity rate of 21.9%, the infections were up by nearly 20% from the previous day's count of 8,681 cases. The high TPR, notwithstanding, the testing was low as only 47,462 tests, including nearly 40% through RT-PCR, were conducted.
Of the new cases, 5,887 were in quarantine and 4526 were detected during contact tracing. Khurda and Sundargarh continued to be the worst-hit districts with 1796 and 1100 cases respectively.
Three more districts -- Cuttack (828), Puri (533), and Bargarh (511) -- registered more than 500 cases each and 13 more districts had over 200 infections each while six districts reported above 100 cases each. The number of new infections was below 100 in only six districts.
The situation remained grim in western Odisha districts bordering Chhatisgarh as eight of the 10 districts reported 3811 cases accounting for 36.6% Of the daily caseload. The transmission is equally spreading in the coastal districts and areas bordering West Bengal with a bulk of cases coming from Cuttack, Ganjam, Jagatsinghpur, Balasore, and Bhadrak districts.
With this, the total number of confirmed cases soared to 4,54,607 of which 3,85,414 people have recovered. The disease claimed 11 more patients, including four from Bhubaneswar, two from Sundargarh and one each from Puri, Kalahandi, Koraput, Boudh and Rayagada, taking the cumulative death toll to 2054.
Odisha has recorded a whopping 1,13,296 cases and 113 fatalities in April. The highest 1.16 lakh cases were registered in September last year when the infection was at its peak. The active cases have gone up 28 times from 2246 cases on April 1 to 67,086 on Saturday. Only 48,323 patients had recovered last
month.
Meanwhile, the State government has constituted a committee of experts from government medical colleges for taking decisions on the use of Tocilizumab and other new drugs for Covid patients in Odisha.
The committee headed by Professor of Rheumatology Department of SCB MCH at Cuttack Dr Bidyut Das will examine and assess the proposal of use of such drugs on a case to case basis under the supervision of Director of Medical Education and Training (DMET) Prof CBK Mohanty.
Other members of the state-level panel included Professor of Pulmonary Medicine department of SCB MCH Dr Jyoti Pattanaik and Associate Professor of Medicine department Dr PK Thatoi.
According to a notification issued by the Health and Family Welfare department, treating doctors will send a proposal to the panel on WhatsApp number of the Chairman with an intimation to DMET seeking opinion on judicious use of the drugs on Covid patients.
The committee will examine the records and certify the efficacy of the drug as well as the necessity of the use of the drugs. If considered for use, the panel will recommend the Managing Director of Odisha State Medical Corporation for the issue of the drugs with intimation to the DMET via WhatsApp or e-mail following which the drugs will be issued as per the availability.