The Odisha Government has decided to set up one more plasma therapy unit for covid-19 patients taking the total number of such units in the state to six. This was revealed in a review meeting held by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in capital Bhubaneswar yesterday.

Mr. Patnaik directed to set up the unit in the Saheed Laxman Nayak Medical College and Hospital in the tribal dominated Koraput district in a week's time. It was also decided in the meeting to make a location-specific strategy in Khordha, Cuttack, Sundargarh and Rayagada districts to bring down the positive rate of covid-19 infection.

As per the state government, a whooping 50 lakh people including members of Panchayati Raj institutions, Self Help Groups and Covid Committees have been trained in Covid-19 management. The government has now decided to rope in this vast and trained manpower to sensitize people on the need for more and more home isolation amid a growing number of asymptomatic covid-19 cases in the state.

Meanwhile, the state has increased its testing capacity which now hovers around 50 thousand sample tests per day thereby making it a leading state in the country with 1096 tests per million people per day.

As of midnight last Monday, Odisha has recorded a cumulative Covid-19 caseload of 64533, recovery of 45314 and a death count of 362. Of late, the state has been reporting a positive rate below 5% and a fatality rate below 0.6 per cent--both being lower than the national average.

Odisha has scaled a new high against covid-19 with it's cumulative tests crossing the 10 lakh mark. The state has conducted a total of 10 lakh 9 thousand 454 sample tests till yesterday.

Meanwhile, a fresh lot of 2239 persons have tested positive during the last 24 hours taking the tally to 64533. While the number of those who have recovered from the infection stand at 43779, the number of active cases has gone up to 20339. With 9 more deaths during the last 24 hours, the total number of people who have succumbed to the infection has risen to 362.

Recently Plasma therapy also began at the hospital in Ganjam district on July 21. The government will also be setting up a Plasma bank at MKCG Medical College and Hospital in Berhampur to store the collected plasma.

Odisha had reported its first recovery through plasma therapy on July 24 when a 48-year-old woman of Cuttack was cured of the infection after the procedure at Ashwini COVID Hospital there.

The service is currently available in SUM Hospital and KIMS Hospital in Bhubaneswar, Ashwini Hospital in Cuttack and Tata Hospital in Ganjam. The stat’s only Plasma Bank is at SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack, which acts as the nodal centre.