Odisha Reports 3rd Coronavirus Confirmed Case

Bhubaneswar: One more person has tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Odisha, taking the number of confirmed cases in the state to three.

The Health and Family Welfare department confirmed it through a tweet:  “One more sample has tested positive for @COVID19 in the State. This makes the number of positive cases 3 and all are from Bhubaneswar.”

According to official sources, a 60-year-old man of Saheed Nagar in Bhubaneswar has contracted the killer virus. He is suspected to have no foreign travel history.

The Health Department has already started contact tracing process to identify the persons who had come in close contact with the affected person.
“The latest COVID19 positive case in the State is a 60 years old male. Contact tracing exercise has commenced,” the health department tweeted.

A 19-year-old youth, who had returned from London on March 18, was diagnosed with the disease the following day. He is currently undergoing treatment at the isolation ward of AIIMS, Bhubaneswar.

On March 16, the first coronavirus patient was confirmed in the eastern state, where the provincial government has initiated a host of measures to prevent possible spread of the disease. The first patient had returned from Italy on March 6 and subsequently taken a train from New Delhi to the Odisha capital. He is a resident of Badagada in the city and has been quarantined at Capital Hospital here.

“The two identified patients are asymptomatic and stable. They are taking a normal diet supplied by the respective hospitals,” chief spokesperson on COVID-19 Subroto Bagchi told the media here on Thursday.

Bagchi had briefed the media on the basis of the report received at 12 pm from the RMRC, which had tested 164 samples for COVID-19 by then and found them to be negative.

It intimated the government about the confirmed case later, the sources added.