Odisha ramps up hospital capacity in fight against COVID; to start 'pool testing' soon

In an attempt to scale up testing, the Odisha government will soon start ‘pool testing’ of the samples of suspected Coronavirus cases. The Central government has given a nod to the proposal for pool testing and soon the infrastructure at Burla medical will be upgraded with the necessary equipment, Odisha's Health and Family Welfare Minister, Naba Das said after a meeting of the high-level ministerial committee held on Thursday.

Odisha ramps up its hospital capacity

Under this method, multiple swab samples are pooled together and tested. The number of samples that can be pooled will be determined by the infection rate. Odisha is ramping up its hospital capacity and the officials have urged people not to take things lightly and follow the lockdown guidelines seriously.

According to a local media report, responding to media queries on COVID-19 hospitals, Development Commissioner, Suresh Mohapatra informed that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had directed for establishment of 35 dedicated hospitals when the State had reported one or two confirmed cases. So far, 24 hospitals with 3,951 beds & 293 ICU beds have already been made functional while remaining 11 COVID hospitals will become functional by April 20, Mohapatra informed.

Testing capacity in the state increased

Mohapatra also appealed to the people to cooperate in the government's efforts to conduct large-scale corona tests to detect hidden cases as the next 8 to 10 days are very crucial for flattening the COVID-19 curve in the state. He said it will be too early to cheer over detection of just 60 COVID-19 positive cases within a span of one month.

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Mohapatra further informed that testing capacity in the state has increased to 1,200 to 1,300 per day and efforts are on to ensure that tests are conducted at the district level on a large scale basis. Out of the total 6,734 samples tested till April 16, the State reported only 60 positive cases with a positivity rate of 1.23%

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India's count of COVID-19 cases has risen to 12,759, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday. Out of the total tally, 10,824 cases are active while 1,514 patients have been cured/discharged and migrated and 420 people have succumbed to the virus.

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(With PTI inputs)