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Coronavirus now less fatal, 90% patients have mild symptoms: AIIMS Director
The AIIMS Director said that there is no community spread of Covid-19 in India, but people need to be cautious in hotspots.
The fatal virulence of coronavirus has declined and 90 per cent of patients now have mild symptoms, said the Director of Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Dr Randeep Guleria.
He spoke to Hindustan Times’ Hindi language publication Hindustan where Dr Guleria said that the people who initially contracted the disease with serious symptoms. “Since these patients were kept in isolation, the disease could not spread much,” he added.
He said that 12 to 13 cities in the country have more than 80 per cent of Covid-19 cases. “If we control these hotspots, the disease will reach its peak in two to three weeks.”
Dr Guleria said that Indians have higher immunity “because most of us have got the BCG vaccination”. He added that number of patients in intensive care and ventilators are very less.
He also spoke about hydroxychloroquine and remdisivir, the medicines which are being touted as cure for Covid-19. “Remdisivir can decrease the hospitalisation time, but it cannot reduce the death rate in serious patients. Hydroxychloroquine too is helpful for people with mild symptoms,” said Dr Guleria.
The AIIMS Director said that there is no community spread in India, but people need to be cautious in hotspots.
India on Wednesday saw another record spike in the number of new Covid-19 cases. There were 8,909 new cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), another single-day surge, and 217 deaths in the last 24 hours (between Tuesday and Wednesday), taking India’s tally beyond the two lakh-mark, data from the Union ministry of health showed.
The health ministry dashboard showed there were 207,615 infections, including 101,497 actives cases and 5,815 fatalities.
The recovery rate was 48.31, up from Tuesday’s 48.07%, after 100,302 people were cured or discharged in the country, according to the health ministry.
