Five new COVID-19 cases in Odisha; total count 147

Five more people, including two with recent travel history to Tamil Nadu, tested positive for COVID-19 in Odisha on Friday, taking the total number of cases in the state to 147, officials said.

Bolangir district, in the western part of Odisha, which was till now untouched by the novel coronavirus, reported two COVID-19 cases. Both returned from Tamil Nadu, a senior official said.

While two other new patients were detected in COVID-19 hotspot Jajpur district, another with recent travel history to Kolkata, tested positive in Balasore district, the officials said.

The Jajpur patients were identified as a 75-year-old woman of Katikata and a 55-year-old man of Birajpur. Katikata and Birajpur are in containment zones where aggressive surveillance and contact tracing are under way with largescale testing.

The two cases in Bolangir, detected in Lekharia village, are men aged 22 and 18 years, a senior Information and Public Relations Department official said, adding that contact tracing and follow up action has been launched in the area.

With COVID-19 spreading its tentacles to Bolangir, 15 of the 30 districts of Odisha have so far reported coronavirus cases.

With the fresh cases, the total number of COVID-19 positive cases climbed to 38 in Jajpur district and 20 in Balasore. All were asymptomatic and contact tracing of the new patients and follow up action is underway, health department officials said.

Two patients in Bhubaneswar have recovered from COVID-19, the health department said.

Of the 47 cases in Khurda district, 27 persons have so far recovered, they said, adding that one person from state capital Bhubaneswar had died of the coronavirus on April 6.

The total number of cases in the state has mounted to 147, of which 105 are active and 41 have recovered and one has died of the disease.

Of the total 147 COVID-19 cases, Bhubaneswar tops the list with 47, followed by 38 in Jajpur, 20 in Balasore district, 19 in Bhadrak district, 10 in Sundergarh district, two each in Kendrapara, Kalahandi and Bolangir districts, one each case in Cuttack, Puri, Dhenkanal, Jharsuguda, Deogarh, Keonjhar and Koraput districts.

As more than 90 per cent of cases in Balasore, Jajpur and Bhadrak districts have West Bengal link, the health