Coronavirus tally in Odisha crosses 29,000; death toll jumps to 159

Odisha's COVID-19 tally surpassed 29,000 on Wednesday after 1,068 people tested positive for the virus, while the death toll rose to 159 with five more patients succumbing to the disease, a health department official said.

The total number of coronavirus patients in Odisha now stands at 29,175, he said.

The five deaths, including three women, were reported from Ganjam, Balasore, Kandhamal, Malkangiri and Puri districts.

A two-year-old girl from Bhadrak district also died but the cause of her death was congenital heart disease with cardiac failure, the official said.

The state also registered the highest single-day recovery of 878 patients, taking the total number of people cured of the disease to 18,938 -- 64.91 per cent of the total caseload.

The state now has 10,041 active cases.

Of the fresh cases, 662 were detected at quarantine centres and the rest 406 were found through contact-tracing, he said.

Ganjam, the worst-hit district, reported the highest 245 new cases, followed by Khurda (194), Sundargarh (112), Gajapati (88), Koraput (66) and Cuttack (61).

Of the total fatalities, Ganjam district accounted for the highest 86 deaths, while 19 patients succumbed to the disease in Khurda and 11 in Cuttack.

The remaining 43 deaths were reported from 14 other districts.

Odisha conducted 10,750 tests on Tuesday, the official added.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik during a video conference with Odisha MLAs said that the state government would use all its resources to save the lives of people during the pandemic.

He appealed to the MLAs to take care of them as well as the frontline workers who have been working tirelessly for over 150 days.

The chief minister said he is happy that three lawmakers infected with the novel coronavirus have recovered.

A senior MLA and former minister, Amar Prasad Satpathy, has been advised to go under home quarantine for 14 days after several of his office staff tested positive for COVID-19.

"I and my family have been advised to put ourselves under isolation as we have come in contact with them at my residence," Satpathy said in a video message.

Meanwhile, the COVID-19 tally in Bhubaneswar breached 2,500-mark with detection of 137 new cases in the last 24 hours, officials said.