Sabarmati Riverfront: The Government of Gujarat today hosted a media interaction of expert doctors with media persons today on Covid-19 pandemic.

Dr. Sudhir Shah

– Anti-body cocktail that was useful in earlier round is not working same way in this wave. There are two medicines as alternate but they are not available.

– Those who are co-morbid should control over their diabetes, blood pressure etc as prevention.

Dr. Atul Patel

– Gnome sequence indicates that most of the cases are due to Omicron.

– Delta would damage lungs of even younger persons while Omicron is less damaging as per primary observations. It mainly infects upper respiratory areas such as sinus, nose and throat and replicate there. In some patients it goes to Shwasnali. Omicron causes less damage to lung. Patients recover after one or two days of fever. Hospitalization data is 1 – 2 per cent. If Omicron cases are in lakhs, even if 1-2% are hospitalized, the number will be sizable and in that case we will need hospitals and ICU.

– Omicron is not impacted by all three kinds of antibodies so far getting infected is in question. Antibodies gained by earlier covid infection, antibodies gained by vaccination or antibodies gained by both vaccination and earlier infection.

– Low risk patients who are young, not co-morbid or below 65 age are just monitored and given paracetamol medicines to give symptomatic supportive care. Most such patients can recover uneventfully in five to seven days with fever limited to one or two days. No other kinds of medicines are required. Doctors just need to identify and divide the patients in two segments – low risk and high risk.

– For high risk patients whose rog pratikar shakti (immune system) is weak, who have 101-102 fever for one or two days, cold and coughing, co-morbidity, renal/lever transplant, kidney problem, cancer patients, can develop the illness further. For such patients, Remdesivir is proven the best medicine for initial three days to prevent the progress further. 89 per cent possibility of their hospitalization can be blocked. Those who are hospitalized, having oxygen shortage, infection spread in lungs can be given other medicines.

Dr. Dilip Mavlankar

– Though this is a mild wave, there can be complications eventually and this is not just an ordinary flue. The increase in the number of cases and hospitalization will be known in next couple of weeks. Do wear N-95 mask or double mask properly. Meet the people in open. If having cold-coughing, do isolate yourself at home in attempt to prevent others. Wear mask at home if you have cold-coughing, in order to prevent infection to spread to others. Don’t wait for test results even but start wearing mask and isolation.

– The nature has sent a mild variant. If we take care of this wave, many experts believe that departure of this pandemic will start in next one month or so.

Dr. VN Shah

– Don’t do mistake to take this lightly only as flue. Those co-morbid can have real complications.

– If you are symptomatic then only go for tests. There’s limit after-all for testing capacity.

– Do wear double masks of two-layers when in public. Two N-95 wearing persons if come across, the transmission ratio will be just near one per cent. We are expecting peak by first week of February or last week of January.

Dr. Tushar Patel

– Most of the cases are mild. It has been seen that fever is experienced just for one day in 101-102 range, and on the next day temperature goes down to 99 and in most cases, fever is in control on third day barring those who are co-morbid. Hydration (drinking sufficient water) and paracetamol are enough for such patients.

– Other common symptoms in this variant are cold and nasal block. So the symptoms are fever, cold and nasal block. After two-three days, coughing is also seen. Unbearable pain in throat is also a symptom. Some can’t even consume food. However there’s no need to fear. Such pain is cured in two to three days. Simple salt water gargling is sufficient. This disease is limited to upper respiratory area. Thanks to vaccination, 97 per cent cases are asymptomatic and cured at home. Some people also suffers body ache. They need to drink two to four liter water per day and maintain hydration. If there’s further progress persistent cough, fever and breathing issue, decreasing oxygen, then only hospitalization is required. There are more cases than last peak but ICU, hospitalization, oxygen requirement, mortality are not that much. However people need to stay alert without panicking.

DeshGujarat