Formulating rules for patients recovered from Covid-19: Govt

The group includes experts from New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences, representatives from the Indian Council of Medical Research and World Health Organisation’s India office.

The Union health ministry’s technical wing is formulating guidelines to help manage long-term complications that some people have reported after recovering from severe Covid-19 illness, officials aware of the matter said.

Medical professionals in PPE coveralls carry a suspected coronavirus patient on a stretcher at Beckbagan on day one of weekly two day complete lockdown imposed by the state government to check the spread of coronavirus (COVID - 19) disease, in Kolkata, West Bengal.(Samir Jana / Hindustan Times)

“The ministry is working on guidelines for discharged patients who may develop other complications post-recovery at home. It has been reported that a section of recovered patients may experience respiratory or heart-related issues, renal or liver complications, or even ophthalmological (eye-related) side-effects. Our experts are working on putting a document together to guide people on what kind of long-term care would they require, and what are the issues that they may face,” said Rajesh Bhushan, an officer on special duty, the health ministry.

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The ministry’s technical wing, or Joint Monitoring Group (JMG), includes several domain experts. Dr Rajiv Garg, the director-general health services, chairs the group. The group includes experts from New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences, representatives from the Indian Council of Medical Research and World Health Organisation’s India office. “This group provides an expert opinion on various topics from time to time… it has been responsible for providing technical inputs to draft guidelines on issues related to testing, isolation of patients, home isolation dos and dont’s, clinical management of Covid-19 cases in and outside hospitals…”

“My experience is that symptoms such as fever and breathlessness go away, and patients also become non-contagious after discharge, but they keep experiencing lethargy, disturbed sleep, body ache, loss of appetite, feeling feverish, and sometimes even fever that comes and goes. There is also a feeling of extreme anxiety and depression,” said Dr GC Khilnani, ex-pulmonary medicine department head at New Delhi’s AIIMS.