Bhubaneswar, May 12 () Twenty-three people tested positive for COVID-19 in Odisha on Tuesday, taking the total number of cases to 437, while 31 others recovered from the highly infectious disease, a health department official said.
The 23 fresh cases were reported from five districts - 15 from Balasore, three each from Ganjam and Jajpur districts, and one each from Puri and Boudh, he said.
The total number of active coronavirus cases in the state now stands at 318. Three persons have died of the infection till now.
The health department tested 4,579 samples for the coronavirus on Monday, the highest in a day so far, the official said.
The total number of samples tested so far in Odisha is 68,057, he said.
Meanwhile, IMS and SUM Hospital in Bhubaneswar has been granted permission for conducting COVID-19 tests.
Earlier eight laboratories were conducting coronavirus tests in the state, the official said.
While Ganjam district tops the list of COVID-19 cases in the state with 158, Jajpur has reported 64 cases, Balasore (57), Khurda (50), Bhadrak (31), Sundergarh (16) and Angul (15).
Nine cases each have been reported from Mayurbhanj andKendrapara, while four have been reported from Puri and threefrom Cuttack.
One case each has been detected in Nayagarh, Koraput, Dhenkanal and Deogarh districts.
Though Ganjam has reported the highest of 158 cases within a span of only 10 days, District Collector V A Kulange has ruled out community spread of the virus.
He said all the COVID-19 cases reported so far are from quarantine centres and from among the people who returned to the district from other COVID-91-hit states.
Kulange appealed to the people not to go close to the temporarymedical centres (TMCs) as some of the suspected positive casesstay there.
Meanwhile, a woman lodged at a COVID-19 quarantine centre in Ganjam district gave birth to a baby boy in the facility.
Thirty-eight people from Manipur who were stranded in Bhubaneswar due to lockdown on Tuesday returned to their state, an official said.
Of the list containing 44 names sent by the Manipur Chief Minister's Office only 38 people could be contacted and sent back to their state by a bus, the official said. AAM SKN RG ANBANB