Total cases cross 5 lakh, Odisha seeks oxygen cylinders & vaccine from Centre

BHUBANESWAR: With eastern India witnessing an unprecedented surge in new Covid infections, the Odisha government has asked the Centre for 20,000 oxygen cylinders, 15 lakh doses of vaccines and rapid antigen test kits on priority.
The state on Thursday added 10,521 fresh cases from among the 48,314 samples tested, taking the test positivity rate to a very high 21.77%.Seventeen more people died of Covid in the state in the past 24 hours. Currently, around 14,000 Covid patients are hospitalised, of which 2,200 are in ICU. Around 400 patients are on ventilator support, officials said.
With the latest single-day infection count, the total positive cases in the state since the detection of the first patient on March 15 last year has crossed the five-lakh mark. The state’s Covid caseload now stands at 5,00,162. With 6,854 recoveries in the past 24 hours, its active cases stand at 74,731. The state has added the last one lakh cases in the past 10 days, which has been the fastest rise during the pandemic.
Twenty-four of the 30 districts are in the ‘red zone’ with more than 1,001 active cases each. While only one district — Malkangiri —- is in the ‘green zone’ (up to 500 active cases), five other districts of Deogarh, Kenojhar, Dhenkanal, Kendrapada, Kandhamal and Gajapati are in the ‘orange zone’ with active cases in the range of 501 to 1000 cases.
“After Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan and NITI Aayog member (health) Vinod K Paul chaired a high-level meeting with senior functionaries of Odisha, besides the other eastern states of Assam, West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand on Wednesday, the state sought 10,000-jumbo type and 10,000-D type (smaller cylinders of 47.5-litre capacity) oxygen cylinders at the earliest,” state’s additional chief secretary (health) Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra said.
The review meeting assessed the arrangements put in place by these states in view of ample evidence to suggest that the pandemic is moving eastwards. It has been observed that there has been a a spike in the number of daily cases in these states, along with rising mortality, government sources said.
Mohapatra had on Tuesday written a letter to the Union health secretary seeking 30,000 cylinders besides 1,000 para monitors, five lakh N95 masks, two lakh PPE kits and 10 lakh gloves from the stock of foreign aid the Centre has received. Though there is no shortage of oxygen in terms of production in the state, it may face problems in supply to hospitals in the absence of enough cylinders, the government sources said.
The government’s current capacity is to supply 129.68MT through cylinders and 375MT liquid medical oxygen (LMO). The state has 10,000 D-type cylinders for the government-run district Covid hospitals and district Covid health centres having 4,856 beds in all.
The government has projected the need for around 23,000 cylinders for these hospitals. This apart, it has sought 13,000 more cylinders in future for the hospitals run under the public-private-partnership mode with 6,472 beds in all and having a peak oxygen need of 81.87MT. The logistics for 120.22MT of oxygen is available with them. They have 3,662 cylinders (33.29MT) apart from 86.93MT LMO as these hospitals have LMO storage plant. This takes the total oxygen available with them to 120.22MT.
The state wants a steady supply of vaccines to complete the second dose of inoculation for those who are due to get the booster shots.