54 personnel of Disaster Response Force infected

Bhubaneswar: The state government Thursday stated that 54 disaster response personnel from NDRF/ODRF and Fire Services tested positive for COVID-19. Besides, a 38-year-old woman from the state with pre-existing illness died of coronavirus.

“Regret to inform that one female COVID 19 positive patient of Bhubaneswar, aged 38 years, who was under long-standing treatment for psoriasis and was on immunosuppressant drugs, has passed away. Cause of death was septic shock with multi-organ failure,” a statement from the Health Department said.

The department has included the death of the COVID 19 patient due to ‘non-COVID death’ category. With the inclusion of her death the total deaths of COVID patients not attributable to the disease stood at three while nine persons in the state are said to have died due to the viral disease.
The government Thursday also said that a total of 54 personnel from the NDRF/ODRAF and Fire Services have been inflicted with COVID 19 after their return from West Bengal.

“All of them had recently returned from Amphan duty in West Bengal,” the official said. Earlier in June, 49 NDRF personnel and 12 Odisha Fire Service officials had tested positive for COVID-19.
Nevertheless the government said that in the latest round of sample testing, it has detected 136 new cases of COVID 19. It said that out of the 136 new cases, 134 were reported from quarantine centres and two were reported from local contacts.

A total of 3,333 samples were examined for the deadly virus in the last 24 hours, taking the number of coronavirus tests thus far in the state to 1,88,743.

The number of active cases in Odisha currently stands at 1,020. Altogether, 2,354 patients have recovered from the disease, while nine have succumbed to the virus.
Eleven of the state’s 30 districts have reported more than 100 cases. Ganjam district topped the list with 652 cases, followed by Jajpur at 326, Khurda at 307, Cuttack at 216, Balasore at 197, Kendrapara at 171, Bhadrak at 152, Jagatsinghpur at 130, Bolangir 124, Sundergarh and Puri at 118 each.