Five more test positive for COVID-19 in Odisha, total count 94

Five more persons tested positive for COVID-19 in Odisha's Bhadrak district on Friday, taking the total number of cases in the state to 94, officials said on Friday.

All five of them, aged between 24 and 41 years, had recently returned to Bhadrak from neighbouring West Bengal, the state Health and Family Welfare Department said, adding the contact-tracing and other follow-up actions were being undertaken.

One of those afflicted hailed from Basudevpur, while two each belonged to Tihidi and Dhamnagar blocks in Bhadrak district, an official of the department said.

Taking the fresh patients into account, the number of COVID-19 cases in Bhadrak district rose to 16. Two of them have recovered.

Bhadrak District Collector Gyan Das said two new containment zones have been identified in Arandua gram panchayat and Brahmaniagon gram panchayat, and measures initiated to tackle the situation.

Of the 94 COVID-19 cases, 60 are active and 33 have recovered from the disease. One person, a 72-year-old man from Bhubaneswar, died of the disease on April 6.

Khurda district, of which Bhubaneswar is a part, has so far reported the maximum number of cases at 46, followed by Bhadrak at 16, Balasore at 12 and Jajpur at 10.

A total of 2,474 samples have been tested till the midnight of April 23 in eight laboratories, the Health Department official said.

In the wake of the sudden spike in coronavirus cases in Bhadrak, Balasore and Jajpur, the state government has imposed a 60-hour complete shutdown in the three northern districts since 10 pm on Thursday.

Together, the three districts accounted for 34 COVID- 19 cases in the past six days.