Bhubaneswar, Dec 30 (IANS): Five more persons in Odisha tested positive for the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, taking the total number of such cases in the state to 14.

"Four male and one female of 22-44 years of age have tested positive for Omicron. While four persons have returned from foreign countries -- Qatar, Congo and the UAE, another infected person has no international travel history. The person had recently visited Raipur and Hyderabad," said director of health services, Bijay Mohapatra.

The health condition of all infected persons is stable, he said. Contact tracing of all these five Omicron positive persons is being carried out. So far, one Omicron positive person's close contact has tested Covid positive and his sample has been sent for genome sequencing while contacts of another two cases have found Covid negative, Mohapatra said.

Moreover, reports of persons who came in contact with another two fresh cases are awaited, he informed.

So far, 14 Omicron cases have been detected in Odisha. Of them, 13 are foreign returnees. One person has already been tested negative.

Meanwhile, Odisha reported 225 fresh Covid-19 cases, taking the total number of cases to 10,54,606. With this, the State's active caseload rose to 1,652. The state government has also confirmed one more deaths due to Covid after an audit. So far, 8,458 persons have died due to the virus in the State.