Covid-19 wipes off entire Odisha family, wife returns to empty house

All family members were admitted to a hospital after getting diagnosed with Covid-19 on July 9.

A woman in Odisha’s Covid epicentre of Ganjam district did manage to defeat the virus, but she came back to an empty home having lost her husband and in-laws to the disease.

The woman lost her husband and her in-laws to the disease within a span of six days. (HT Photo/Representative)

Anuradha Panigrahi of Digapahandi block in Ganjam district returned home from hospital a few days ago after recovering from Covid-19 but was left with no joy after learning that her husband Jitendra has succumbed to the virus at a Covid hospital in Berhampur town on July 20.

A few days before that, her father-in-law Krushna Chandra Patra and mother-in-law Janaki Patra, too, had succumbed to the virus at the hospital.

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“Jitendra, his wife and his parents had visited a primary school on July 9 to get their swabs tested. The next day they were admitted to a Covid hospital after their tests came positive. On July 15, his mother Janaki was the first to succumb to the disease, followed by his father Krushna Chandra on July 18. Jitendra passed away on July 20,” said his friend Siba Prasad Rath.

Ganjam has so far reported 6,362 cases of coronavirus and 62 deaths, the highest among all the 30 districts of the state. With 98 per cent of its cases being reported from outside the quarantine centres, experts fear the district is vulnerable to entering the community transmissions phase of the contagion.