By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, April 5, 2020: Eighteen persons were tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Bhubaneswar – highest in a day, raising the number of cases of the pandemic in Odisha to 39 on Sunday, latest health and family welfare department tweet said.

Official sources said out of the 16 new positive cases, 15 persons belong to Bomikhal area. All suspects and contacts will soon be isolated and tested. Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has already sealed Bomikhal area. This apart, cluster containment has been put in place and house to house survey is going on.

Earlier in the day, a 70-year-old man from the Kapila Prasad Housing Board Colony Phase II, who had returned from Australia on March 22, tested positive for the deadly COVID-19 (coronavirus disease), a Health Department official said adding that the septuagenarian has been put under home quarantine.

Similarly, a 29-year-old man tested positive during active surveillance launched by the authorities after detection of three coronavirus cases earlier from the Bomikhal area, according to the official.

A 29-year-old man, who returned from Bahrain, had on Saturday tested positive in Kalahandi district, the first COVID-19 patient from western Odisha.

The man was asymptomatic and he was the lone positive case from among the 304 samples tested on Saturday, according to an official.

Two patients from Bhubaneswar, both having foreign-travel history, have recovered and discharged from hospital.

The state government has aggressively launched contact-tracing of the COVID-19 patients in different districts.

The Health and Family Welfare department urged people not to panic and stay indoors.

Currently samples of suspected cases are being tested at RMRC, AIIMS, Bhubaneswar and SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack.