Plasma Therapy To Treat COVID-19 Patients In Odisha To Start From Tomorrow

Bhubaneswar : Treatment of COVID-19 patients using plasma therapy will begin in Odisha at the three dedicated COVID Hospitals-KIMS and SUM in Bhubaneswar and Ashwini in Cuttack from tomorrow.

The SCB Medical College & Hospital at Cuttack will function as the nodal centre for plasma therapy.

This was revealed at a high-level review meeting on containing COVID chaired by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik here today.

It was also revealed at the meeting that by next week COVID-19 tests will be ramped up to 9,000 tests a day from the current level of 7,000 tests a day.

Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Pradipta Mohapatra informed at the meeting that for the benefit of the people more private hospitals in the State will be given permission to conduct the test.

Mohapatra clarified that there is no shortage of beds and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds in COVID hospitals, especially in Cuttack, Bhubaneswar, and Ganjam.

Steps have been taken to increase beds and 200 ICU beds in these places in the next seven days keeping future in mind, he added.

It was revealed at the meeting that while sero surveillance has been completed in Puri town, community sero surveillance has been completed in Bhubaneswar. In addition to that sero surveillance of high-risk population is underway.

While the recovery rate at the national level is 63%, in Odisha it is 64.88%. Similarly, while the fatality ratio at the national level is 2.6%, in Odisha is 0.5%.

It was revealed at the meeting that among the afflicted 66% were youth.

Since more migrants have returned to the five districts of Ganjam, Cuttack, Jajpur, Sundargarh, and Khordha, the situation in these five districts has emerged as a challenge. Therefore, steps have been taken giving more focus on these districts, the review revealed.

Chief Minister Patnaik advised officials to further strengthen infrastructure in Ganjam district by providing more human resources, ventilators, ambulance, beds, etc.

Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy informed at the meeting that all policies and orders for COVID containment in the State were being strictly adhered to and that required steps have been taken to meet the challenge in Ganjam district.