The Odisha government on Monday announced that a 45-day door-to-door survey would be undertaken from Tuesday to detect COVID-19 cases.
The ASHA and ANM workers would visit every home between June 16 and July 31 in both rural and urban areas to find out if any member of a family had symptoms of COVID-19, Odisha Mission Director of National Health Mission Shalini Pandit told presspersons here.
The workers would inform the authorities so that necessary steps would be taken immediately for collection and testing of samples, Ms. Pandit said.
The State had already tested 2,02,513 samples by midnight of Sunday, Ms. Pandit said.
She said the State had changed its strategy in testing samples as per the revised guidelines issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research. While one positive case was being found by testing samples of 200 asymptomatic persons earlier, now one case was being detected by testing samples of 20 persons with symptoms and contacts of COVID-19 positive cases, she said.
Stating that Odisha was on the right track in its fight against COVID-19 in the last three months, Ms. Pandit said the State had emerged as a model for others.
While the national average was detection of 25 COVID-19 positive cases in every one lakh population, Odisha’s rate was 9.3 persons, Ms. Pandit said. The mortality rate per one lakh population was 0.03% in Odisha against the national average of 0.7%, and the State’s recovery rate was 67% against the national average of 51%, she said.
Ms. Pandit said the coming four to six weeks would be crucial in fighting the pandemic. The State could succeed in defeating COVID-19 if people continue to cooperate in a similar way by following social distancing norms and obeying restrictions.
Of the 2 lakh-odd samples tested in Odisha so far, 75,000 were tested in the Regional Medical Research Centre, Bhubaneswar by Monday, said RMRC Director Sanghamitra Pati.
After obtaining the COBAS 6800 machine, the RMRC was able to enhance its testing and it was able to test 10,000 samples in 22 days, Ms. Pati said, while urging people to adhere to the COVID-19 guidelines to defeat the pandemic.
Meanwhile, 146 more positive cases were reported in the State, taking its total to 4,055 on Monday. The active cases stood at 1,187, while 2,854 persons had recovered and 14 had died — 11 of COVID-19 and three of other ailments.