Bhubaneswar (Odisha): Odisha has received TATA MD check OmiSure RT-PCR test kits, which it had ordered earlier this month for detecting the presence of Omicron in samples of people testing COVID-19 positive. Speaking to the media, Health Services Director Bijay Mohapatra said that the dry run is in progress. “It will be first used for internal study and the kits will then be dispatched to districts reporting a higher number of cases,” he said.
The state has procured 30,000 OmiSure kits in the first phase. Kits have reached, and will be used primarily in four cities – Berhampur, Cuttack, Rourkela and Bhubaneswar, the Health Department sources said.
Notably, the Odisha government had placed an order for five lakh such kits developed by the Mumbai-based Tata Medical and Diagnostics Ltd (TATA MD) in partnership with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The company on January 10 said that Odisha was the first state in the country to order its kits, which can detect the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV2 in four hours during the RT-PCR tests.
READ: Odisha first state to order TATA Omisure kits to detect Omicron
Meanwhile, the state on Wednesday reported 11,607 new COVID-19 cases, 521 more than the previous day, with the tally rising to 11,67,094, a health department bulletin said. The death toll mounted to 8,494 with six fresh COVID fatalities, the highest single-day count in more than three months, it said. Over 53 Covid positive patients have died due to comorbidities so far, the bulletin said. At least 991 children were among the new patients and the positivity ratio stood at 16.7 per cent as the fresh infections were detected from 69,502 sample tests in the last 24 hours, it said. Odisha now has 84,770 active cases.
Altogether 10,73,777 people, including 7,745 on Monday, have recuperated from the disease so far, the bulletin added.
