Odishatv Bureau

Bhubaneswar: Odisha has earned praise from the World Health Organization (WHO) for its effective management of the COVID-19 pandemic situation, the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) said on Wednesday.

The CMO in its official twitter handle posted an article "From Governance to Community Resilience: Odishas Response to COVID-19" which appeared in the WHO portal:


The CMO made this article public on the day when the opposition BJP and Congress came down heavily on the state government in the Assembly and accused it of failing to manage the COVID-19 pandemic situation.

"Odisha earned praise from @WHO for its effective governance & community-based strategies to contain the spread of #COVID19 & keep the fatality very low. WHO highlighted Odishas early response, dedicated Covid Hospitals & decentralised management through GPs," the CMO Odisha said in its Twitter post.

The CMO in a sticker attached to the twitter post highlighted WHO's points for which the state has earned praise. "They are early containment measures, dedicated COVID Hospitals, effective monitoring, telemedicine and plasma therapy, realtime information through state COVID dashboard, training of 1,80,000 health workers and financial incentives," it said.

The CMO also said that effective governance, robust health infrastructure, testing strategy, technology-aided pandemic management, migrant management, decentralised management through gram panchayats and involvement of Mission Shakti helped ineffective management of COVID-19.

"As of June 24, 2020, the state recorded an impressive recovery rate of 69.4%, and the mortality rate of just 0.29%, which is one of the best in the country. Odisha was the first in the country to initiate strict measures.

"The chief minister ordered an immediate closure of many public places on March 13, even though the state had not reported a single case of COVID-19," the article dated September 17 said.

It said that when the first case was reported on March 15, the state control rooms had been made operational, and capacity building of the district level health officials on preparedness and response activities, and public awareness campaigns on handwashing and respiratory etiquettes were already initiated.

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