COVID-19: Odisha declares more areas as containment zones
The administration will conduct surveillance onresidents of the areas and trace the persons with whom fournew COVID-19 patients had come in contact with, they said.
All the four new patients have travel history, withone of them having attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregationin Delhi's Nizamuddin area, the officials said.
With four fresh cases reported in the last 24 hours,the total count in Odisha now stands at 54.
The disease has now spread to tribal-dominatedSundargarh district with two of the four new COVID-19 patientshailing from there, taking the total number of affecteddistricts to nine, they said.
One of the two COVID-19 patients from the district isa 67-year-old man from Bisra area who had attended theTablighi Jamaat congregation in the national capital, anofficial said.
The other COVID-19 patient is also from the same area.The 18-year-old youth had come in contact with the TablighiJamaat congregation attendee, he said.
The other two new COVID-19 patients are a 17-year-oldgirl from Rajnagar area in Kendrapara district who hadreturned home from Kolkata on March 29 and a 46-year-old manfrom Jharpada area in Bhubaneswar who is a relative of aperson who had died of coronavirus infection, the officialsaid.
Following two persons getting afflicted with thedisease in Bisra area, the Sundargarh district administrationhas declared a three-km radius around Bisra Sadar as acontainment zone, Collector Nikhil Pavan Kalyan said.
The area has been sealed preventing any movement intoor out of the locality. The containment will continue for thenext 48 hours. All the essential commodities will be deliveredat the doorsteps of the residents as they are not allowed toventure out of their houses, he said.
"We have started location mapping of the patients tofind out the persons they had come in contact with. Swabsamples of all such persons will be tested," the collectorsaid.
The area is being sanitised and movement of public andprivate transport has been prohibited. All residents have beeninstructed to stay indoors. There are over 1,500 families inthe area, he said.
Similar measures have been taken in parts of Rajnagararea in Kendrapara district from where the 17-year-old COVID-19 patient hails, officials said.
Some villages in the area with 150 households havebeen sealed for the conduct of contact tracing andsurveillance, Kendrapada district Collector Samarth Vermasaid.
Swab samples of the COVID-19 patient's family membershave been collected for examination, he said, adding thatsamples of all persons who came in contact with her will alsobe tested.
Six localities in Bhubaneswar comprising 7,992households have already been sealed and declared containmentzones.
Surveillance is being conducted on around 4,000 peopleand samples of some persons suspected to be infected with thedisease have been sent for examination, officials said.
Surya Nagar, Bomikhal, Satya Nagar, Sunarpada, KapilaPrasad and IB Colony areas in Bhubaneswar have been declaredas containment zones.
There are three containment zones in Cuttack districtand one each in Puri, Ganjam, Jajpur, Kendrapara, Bhadrak andKalahandi districts. SKNACD ACD