Sambalpur: After detection of 30 odd SARS-CoV-2 positive cases from Dimirigunda Panchayat under Kuchinda block in the district, the local administration on Tuesday marked the panchayat as the Containment Zone and its adjoining areas as the buffer zone.
The containment restrictions, the first such control measures to be taken in Sambalpur in 2021, have been imposed on several villages of Dimirigunda Panchayat, namely Lepeikani, Bamandagarh and Dimirigunda.
Sources suspect the disease spread rapidly in the Panchayat soon after the Dola Yatra this year.
However, a doctor at the local community health centre, Sarat Kumar Dehury claims that a group of women religious mandli who had gone to the Chhattisgarh border during Holi are probably the reason behind the spread of virus.
“ASHA and Anganwadi workers are conducting door to door surveillance and contact testing in the containment zone is also underway. All the patients are stable and they are being treated as per their symptoms,” said Dehury
A local of Dimirigunda, Malaya Behera said, “There are no isolation centres in the vicinity and the patients have to go by buses to get tested at hospital which is dangerous for others.”
Refuting the Dola Yatra theory, suspected to be the cause behind the outbreak, Behera said, “People were already infected even before the Dola Yatra. So the theory does not stand its ground.”
It is pertinent to mention here that, the district administrations of 10 Odisha districts especially those bordering with Chhattisgarh including Sambalpur have already imposed night curfew in their jurisdictions.
(Edited By Suryakant Jena)