[the_ad_placement id=”adsense-in-feed”]
WHO warns that the true level of transmission is frequently underestimated
New Delhi: As 61,537 confirmed COVID-19 cases were reported in the last 24 hours (till 8am) on Saturday, and total 933 deaths reported during this period in the country, in all 29 districts in 12 states have been reporting higher Covid-19 mortality rate than the national and states’ average, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare stated here on Saturday.
The ministry further stated that as part of the continuous process of review and handholding of States/Union Territories for collaborative management of COVID-19, two high level virtual meetings were chaired by Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan on August 7 and 8 “to engage with the States reporting with high case load and higher Case Fatality Rate (CFR) than the national average, in order to advise and support them on efforts to prevent and reduce mortality due to COVID-19.”
Saturday’s meeting focused on 13 districts concentrated in eight States/UT. These are Kamrup Metro in Assam; Patna in Bihar; Ranchi in Jharkhand; Alappuzha and Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala; Ganjam in Odisha; Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh; 24 Paraganas North, Hooghly, Howrah, Kolkata and Maldah in West Bengal; and Delhi. These districts account for nearly 9% of India’s active cases and about 14% of COVID deaths. They also report low tests per million and high confirmation percentage. The States were advised to address the issues of low lab utilisation i.e. less than 100 tests per day for RT-PCR and 10 for others; low tests per million population; decrease in absolute tests from last week; delay in test results; and high confirmation percentage among the health care workers. They were advised to ensure timely referral and hospitalization in view of reports from some districts of patients dying within 48 hrs of admission.
[the_ad_placement id=”content-placement-after-3rd-paragraph”]
On Friday, the meeting had focussed on Ahmedabad and Surat in Gujarat; Belagavi, Bengaluru urban, Kalaburagi and Udupi in Karnataka; Chennai, Kanchipuram, Ranipet, Theni, Thiruvallur, Tiruchirappalli, Tuticorin and Virudhnagar in Tamil Nadu; Hyderabad and Medchal Malkajgiri in Telangana.
Apart from the higher case mortality, these districts accounted for 17% of India’s active cases, high daily new cases, low tests per million, and high confirmation percentage.
“Those districts that are reporting COVID-19 mortality higher than the national and states’ average are a cause of concern,” the ministry stated.
The districts were advised to ensure that the advisories, guidelines and clinical treatment protocols issued by the Health Ministry are adopted and effectively implemented to reduce the mortality among COVID-19 patients and other preventable deaths among all sections of the people.
The government though claimed that “coordinated, graded and pro-active management of COVID-19 by the Union and State/UT governments” had ensured the national Case Fatality Rate (CFR) is on the slide. “It currently stands at 2.04%,” the ministry claimed.
In the meantime, in Chhattisgarh, two days after the former Vidhan Sabha Speaker Gourishankar Agrawal was found Covid-positive, the Leader of Opposition Dharamlal Kaushik was also tested positive for Covid 19.
In Telangana, asymptomatic patients being the silent carriers of coronavirus was a big concern in the state now. “While it is a good sign that a majority of asymptomatic cases indicate a higher rate of recovery, rapid spread of the virus in a large population is what is worrying the officials,” the ministry stated.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation has cautioned that for COVID-19, as for many infectious diseases, “the true level of transmission is frequently underestimated because a substantial proportion of people with the infection are undetected either because they are asymptomatic or have only mild symptoms and thus typically fail to present at healthcare facilities”.
In a scientific brief entitled ‘Estimating mortality from COVID-19’, the WHO stated that there may also be neglected or under-served segments of the population “who are less likely to access healthcare or testing”.
“Under-detection of cases may be exacerbated during an epidemic, when testing capacity may be limited and restricted to people with severe cases and priority risk groups (such as frontline healthcare workers, elderly people and people with comorbidities),” it stated, adding that cases might also be misdiagnosed and attributed to other diseases with similar clinical presentation, such as influenza.
– globalbihari bureau
[the_ad_placement id=”sidebar-feed”]
