BHUBANESWAR: With resurgence in COVID cases and low booster vaccine offtake among adults in the State, the Odisha government is mulling to approach the Centre for implementing free precaution dose for 18-59 years age group to ensure inoculation compliance.
Principal Secretary of Health and Family Welfare department NB Dhal on Monday said that a highlevel meeting on the COVID situation and vaccination status in the State will be held soon and if needed, the issue of free precaution dose to all adults will be taken up with the Centre.
"Now the precaution dose is being administered to healthcare and frontline workers and senior citizens free of cost. The Ministry of Health has to take a decision whether the precaution dose will be administered free to the 18-59 years age group," he told mediapersons.
On the rising infections, Dhal said, though the cases are on the upward spiral in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Rourkela and Puri, the symptoms in most patients were mild. Around one per cent (pc) of the cases were in hospital and the remaining 99 per cent were recovering in home isolation, he said.
In view of the rising trend, the Health Secretary said that COVID testing was ramped up to 15,000 samples a day from 10,000 about a month ago and now the plans are afoot to augment it to 25,000 tests per day. Meanwhile, the State reported over 500 cases for the third consecutive day on Monday, pushing the active cases to cross 3,031.
The test positivity rate jumped to 4.25 per cent from 3.7 per cent a day before. Of the 572 fresh cases, 69 were of the 0-18 years age group. While the infection spread to 25 districts, Khurda topped with 219 cases, followed by 68 from Cuttack, 63 from Sundargarh, 41 from Sambalpur, 16 from Mayurbhanj, 14 from Angul and 12 each from Balasore and Puri.
Odisha to move Centre for free booster for 18-59 group
The TPR was 11.17 per cent in Khurda, 9.42 per cent in Cuttack, 8.41 pc in Sundargarh and 6.38 pc in Puri. Health officials said that the current wave appears to be less severe compared to the previous waves of the pandemic.
Director of Public Health Dr Niranjan Mishra said the rate of hospitalisation at present is extremely low compared to the last three waves. Of around 3,000 active cases, only 28 required institutional care and in most cases either people are asymptomatic or the symptoms are not severe as the infection is mostly driven by Omicron variant, he added.
Around 50 samples from different clusters have been sent for genome sequencing and the result is expected on Tuesday.