BHUBANESWAR: Amid the growing fear of Covid fourth wave, the State government on Sunday sent a team of medical officers to Rayagada district where two Covid clusters emerged, leading to a five-fold rise in new cases in last 24 hours. The three-member team led by State surveillance officer Dr SN Panigrahi visited the Anwesha Hostel at Kotlaguda to take stock of the situation. Of the 257 inmates of the hostel, 44 had tested positive on Saturday.
Another district-level health team has been deployed at the hostel to treat the symptomatic students and monitor others who tested positive. The affected students have been asked not to leave the hostel. Apart from the hostel, 20 other girl students of Hatamuniguda Government High School in Bisamkatak block were also found to have contracted the virus. Swab samples of the contacts in both clusters have been sent for tests.
Director of Health Services Dr Bijay Mohapatra said the health team from the State headquarters has been asked to submit a report detailing the cluster outbreak and the origin of infection.“There is no reason to panic as only seven to eight students are symptomatic. The CDMO has been asked to send the samples with required CT value to the Institute of Life Sciences (ILS) for genome sequencing. Containment measures have been initiated,” he said.
Rayagada collector Saroj Kumar Mishra told media persons that all positive samples have been sent to RMRC, Bhubaneswar for re-testing. All the students are stable and under medical supervision. Further action will be taken on the basis of RMRC report, he added. With the 64 cases from Rayagada, the State recorded 71 new cases from five districts in 24 hours. This is the highest single-day spike after March 19, when 72 cases were reported. The daily case count was less than 20 for the last one month.
Of the 71 fresh cases, 66 were in the age group of 0-18 years. The test positivity rate also rose to 0.45 per cent (pc) from 0.09 pc a day before. As many as 15,685 samples were tested. The Health Director said districts have been asked to monitor cluster outbreaks and initiate containment measures as and when required. Meanwhile, the ST and SC Development, Minorities and Backward Classes Welfare Department has directed district welfare officers to start random testing and tracking in all department-run schools and hostels to check the spread of Covid cases.