5 doctors among 110 new COVID-19 cases in Odisha

As many as 110 more people, including five doctors, tested positive for COVID-19 in Odisha on Wednesday, raising state's tally to 3,250, a health department official said.

Of fresh cases, 97 were reported from quarantine centres where people returning from different states are lodged, while 13 ors were detected in contract-tracing exercise, he said.

five doctors -- four from AIIMS, Bhubaneswar, and one from Apollo Hospital -- were found to have been infected with virus during contact-tracing exercise, according to a statement issued by Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC).

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik expressed his concern over frontline health workers getting infected with coronavirus.

"I have been distressed to te that over past few weeks re have been instances of service providers in health facilities getting infected with COVID," Patnaik said, ding that se incidents point to a probable breach in maintaining infection control practices.

Meanwhile, chief district medical officer (CDMO) of Rayaga was put under home quarantine after a COVID-19 case was reported from his office.

fresh cases were detected from 17 districts, official said.

Thirty-three cases were detected in Jagatsinghpur district, followed by 20 in Cuttack, 14 in Khurda, 11 in Gajapati and seven in Puri.

Four cases each were reported in Rayga, Nayagarh, Kalahandi and Mayurbhanj, two in Bargarh and one case each in Jharsuguda, Bhrak, Balangir, Kendrapa, Koraput, Keonjhar and Boudh districts.

chief minister, however, congratulated health workers as Odisha has lowest COVID-19 mortality rate and one of highest recovery rates in country.

state's recovery and mortality rates are w 70.21 per cent and 0.27 per cent, respectively.

A total of 149 patients recovered from disease during day, official said, ding that overall 2,281 people have been cured of infection.

With this, number of active cases in state decreased to 957.

Nine people have died of COVID-19 in state. Two more patients h tested positive for disease but y died of or reasons, official said.

As many as 3,026 samples were tested for disease on Tuesday, taking total number of tests conducted to 1,85,410, he said.

Eleven of 30 districts in state have reported more than 100 cases.

Ganjam district topped COVID tally with 649 cases, followed by Jajpur (326), Khurda (290), Cuttack (209), Balasore (197), Kendrapara (170), Bhrak (152), Jagatsinghpur (130), Bolangir (124), Sundergarh (118) and Puri (115).

As many as 1,273 Odia people returned to state on Wednesday, taking number of returnees to 5,15,900, a statement said.

government has set up 16,813 temporary medical centres in 6,798 gram-panchayats with 7,62,091 beds, where returnees are quarantined.