Bhubaneswar: In view of the rising Covid cases in the country, Odisha govt has started monitoring the situation closely. Though the state reported only one Covid case in the last six months, the govt is not taking the recent development lightly, official sources said here on Monday.Bijay Kumar Mohapatra, special secretary, health and family welfare department, said the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has advised the state to remain alert for surge in Covid cases. “We were advised to analyse the situation and keep a tab on the reporting of cases,” he added.He said an advisory is yet to be issued in the state regarding the Covid issue. “Now, the hospitalisation rate is very low in this disease. A person infected by the new variant of the coronavirus is recovering in home isolation. People should not panic with the reporting of sporadic cases of Covid,” he added.He said the state reported a single case after Oct 2024 on Wednesday. “No new case was reported in the state from Wednesday,” he added.The Odisha govt on Thursday confirmed the case and convened a high-level meeting to review the situation. Recently, health secretary Aswathy S told the media that sporadic cases of Covid are continuously being detected in various parts of the country since the fall of the pandemic’s peak in 2020-21. Since then, the disease is well controlled and contained in Odisha, she added.“As per the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and World Health Organisation (WHO) indicators, these sporadic cases are of a mild variety of known pre-existing strains. They do not cause any grave disease,” she added.After 2022, the virus is seeing a gradual return to Asia, with Singapore and Hong Kong recording the maximum number of cases in the last few weeks. India has been seeing a rise in variant NB18 and LF7 variants. It reported around 257 active Covid-19 cases. Maximum cases were reported from Kerala, followed by Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Delhi. Most of the cases were managed at home.