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 the state's tally to 3,250, a health department official said.

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

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

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

"I have been distressed to note that over the past few weeks there have been instances of service providers in health facilities getting infected with COVID," Patnaik said, adding that these incidents point to a probable breach in maintaining infection control practices.

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

The fresh cases were detected from 17 districts, the 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 Raygada, Nayagarh, Kalahandi and Mayurbhanj, two in Bargarh and one case each in Jharsuguda, Bhadrak, Balangir, Kendrapada, Koraput, Keonjhar and Boudh districts.

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

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

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

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

Nine people have died of COVID-19 in the state. Two more patients had tested positive for the disease but they died of other reasons, the official said.

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

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

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

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

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