Bhubaneswar, Jun 19 () Odisha's COVID-19 tally rose to 4,677 with 165 more people, including 11 disaster response personnel and four railway staff, testing positive for the viral infection, a state health department official said on Friday.
The state also registered 153 recoveries, taking the total number of patients cured so far to 3,297, which is 70.49 per cent of the total cases.
Of the 165 new cases, 140 were reported from quarantine centres where people returning from other states were lodged, while 25 were detected during contact tracing, he said.
While the new cases include 11 personnel of the disaster response teams that were sent to neighbouring West Bengal for restoration work following Cyclone Amphan, four railway staff with travel history to Delhi also tested positive to the disease. All of them were either in institutional or home quarantine, the official said.
The total number of disaster response personnel, including those from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) and the Odisha Fire Service, infected with the disease has now increased to 206, he said, adding that the number of railway officials in Bhubaneswar afflicted with the virus has also risen to seven.
However, 11 Fire Service personnel and 13 NDRF men have recovered and were discharged from a COVID-19 hospital in Cuttack, officials of the two organisations said.
The new cases were reported from 17 districts, with the highest 41 cases from Ganjam -- the worst-affected district in Odisha. It has so far accounted for 796 COVID-19 cases and six of the 11 fatalities in the state, the official said.
Apart from the 41 new cases in Ganjam, Gajapati recorded 28 fresh instances of the infection, Balasore 21 and Cuttack 20. Ganjam district administration said that 12 of the 41 new patients were frontline COVID-19 workers.
Half of the 30 districts in the state have reported more than 100 cases each.
Meanwhile, 153 patients have recovered from the disease, the highest of 43 from Cuttack district. Of the total 4,667 COVID-19 cases in the state, 1,366 are active while 3,297 patients have recovered, a health official said.
Eleven people have died of the disease so far while three patients have died due to other ailments, he said. Odisha has tested a total of 2,16,607 samples so far, including 4,383 on Thursday.
Meanwhile, an official statement said that as many as 5,67,968 people stranded elsewhere have returned to Odisha since May 3. They include 6,900 people who came back on Friday.
The state government has already prepared 16,821 Temporary Medical Centres and Camps with 7,67 673 beds in 6,798 village panchayats to lodge migrant workers in rural areas, an official said. AAM RG NSD