Bhubaneswar, January 19: The State has received 30,000 OmiSure testing kits, which will be used on a trial run basis in four towns of the State to detect Omicron variants of COVID-19.
Odisha is the first State in India to place an order for the OmiSure kits from Tata Medical and Diagnostics Ltd. (TATA MD). It had placed orders to procure 5 lakh kits, of which 30,000 kits have arrived.
“The OmiSure kits have arrived. There are many variants of COVID-19. Omicron is one among them, which is highly transmissible. The OmiSure kits will be sent to places having high case load for an internal study,” Health Services Director Bijay Mohapatra.
Initially, the kits will be sent to Bhubaneswar, Berhampur, Cuttack and Rourkela where a high number of COVID-19 cases are being detected in comparison to other places of the State, he informed.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had recently approved the OmiSure kit developed by the Tata MD for RT-PCR detection of the Omicron variant.
With the detection of another 145 fresh Omicron cases on Wednesday, the total number of cases in the State increased to 347.
