The central team deployed by the ministry of health and family welfare to monitor Covid-19 management arrived in Odisha on Monday.
The team consists of two members -- Professor of Kolkata-based All India Institute of Hygiene & Public Health (AIIH&PH) Dr Shibani Dutta who reached Bhubaneswar on Monday morning, and Prasanta Raghab Mohapatra, a professor in AIIMS Bhubaneswar.
"As per our programme, today we will have meetings with state government officials and tomorrow will visit the districts which are having high caseloads and rising case trend," Dutta told reporters.
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During the field visit, the team will see early tracing & testing of cases along with surveillance & containment activities. They will also examine whether the hospitals are equipped with sufficient numbers of beds and ventilators, she informed.
The team will monitor the overall implementation of all Covid-19 norms and appropriate behaviour, the availability of hospital beds, ambulances, ventilators, and medical oxygen, and vaccination. The team members are also expected to give suggestions on health remedies respective to the state governments, sources said.
Odisha on Monday reported the highest single day Covid-19 deaths of 52 which took the death toll to 4,248 so far.
The highest nine Covid related deaths were reported in Khurda district, while Bargarh, Ganjam, Kalahandi, Sundergarh and Puri districts witnessed five fatalities each.
Similarly, four deaths were reported from Kendrapara district and two each from Cuttack, Kandhamal & Mayurbhanj districts. Bhadrak, Boudh, Dhenkanal, Jharsuguda, Keonjhar, Nayagarh, Nuapada and Sambalpur districts registered one Covid-19 death each.
"Usually, there is a gap in between the detection and death of a Covid positive case. If a person is infected today, the death usually occurs after a few days when he/she gets serious and does not respond to the treatment," said Director Medical Education and Training (DMET), CBK Mohanty.
So, few patients are under treatment in critical care facilities for many days, adding to the high fatality rate. However, the deaths may also come very soon, Mohanty added.
However, the test positivity rate (TPR) has come down to 3.75 per cent on Monday from 4.03 per cent reported on Sunday. As many as 2,803 fresh cases were reported in Odisha, of which 1,597 are from quarantine centres and 1,206 are local contact cases.
With this, the active cases in the state reached 29,620 while 8,90,778 patients have recovered from the disease so far.