Odisha reports first confirmed case of novel coronavirus

The first confirmed case of novel coronavirus was reported in Odisha on Monday (March 16), taking the positive cases in the country to 114, after a researcher who recently returned from Italy tested positive for it, a senior official said.

The 33-year-old man is being treated at Capital Hospital here, he said. “His condition is stable and he is not showing any other complications,” state governments’ chief spokesperson on coronavirus cases Subroto Bagchi told reporters.

The patient reached Delhi from Italy on March 6 and travelled to Bhubaneswar by train on March 12. He consulted a doctor on March 13, complaining of fever and headache, he said.

“The man then went to Capital Hospital on March 14 where he was admitted to the isolation ward. His blood and swab samples were sent for medical examination and tests confirmed he is infected by novel coronavirus,” Bagchi said.

As the man travelled by train from Delhi to Bhubaneswar, the state government launched a “contact tracing exercise”, Bagchi, also the chairman of Odisha Skill Development Authority, said.

Efforts are on to trace all the people who are suspected to have come in contact with him, the official said. His family members have been quarantined and kept under observation. Data of all those people who travelled with the researcher on the train is being collected so that they can be tracked and quarantined too, Bagchi added.