Community transmission in Guwahati may return to normal level by August: Sarma

The community transmission of coronavirus in Guwahati city, with over 8,000 positive cases so far, was likely to return to a normal level by the end of August, Assam Health and Family Welfare Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Thursday. The situation in the state capital, which falls under Kamrup Metropolitan district and is under complete lockdown since June 28, is still critical and more testing was required to bring it under control, the minister said.

After 3,293 people tested positive in 12 days since June 24, Sarma had on July 5 indicated that community transmission had begun in the city. "We will have to conduct more than three lakh tests in Guwahati city alone as testing and tracking was the sure way to control the situation," he told a press conference.

So far 1.10 lakh people have been tested in the city in 31 Covid Screening Centres and it was decided to intensify the process by setting up 60 more such centres, Sarma said. The lockdown in the city is not giving the desired result as a large number of people from the police and para- military forces, jails and other places are testing positive, the minister said.

He said that the decision regarding extension of the lockdown scheduled to end on July 19 will be taken by the government soon. Testing will be conducted on owners and employees of all shops, business and commercial establishments, government employees and also in private organizations, Sarma said.

The minister said that there is a misconception that the government is not allowing home quarantine of patients which is not true.

The health department, with great reluctance, decided to allow home quarantine to non-symptomatic Covid-19 patients only if they sign an undertaking agreeing to certain conditions and not burdening the public health care system, he said.

Patients will be allowed home quarantine if they can ensure that their neighbours have no objection, there are no elderly members in the family, they have a private physician checking on them every three hours, have a pulse oximeter at home and are able to come in personal vehicle to a hospital, in case their condition deteriorates, he said. Besides, the entire residence of the patient will be converted to a containment zone.

The exemption of the system of institutional and hotel quarantine in Kamrup Metropolitan district given to air passengers will be now applicable to train and road passengers whose residence is in the district, the minister said.

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He also said that a collective decision has been taken by the doctors of all the medical colleges and hospitals in the state that an aggressive course of treatment will be given to Covid patients who are in the moderate level so that they do not reach the critical stage.

The first line of treatment will be oxygen therapy while the second stage is medication that includes steroids, anti-virals and two new medicines that have come to the country recently, he said. Sarma said that 45 patients who were in ICU have recovered "which is indeed remarkable as very few patients in other states recover from the ICU", he said. There are 53 patients in the ICU at present in the state.

Sarma said that there are reports that some private hospitals have refused to treat people due to absence of Covid test results as many of them do not have RT-PCR testing facilities.

They have been advised to make arrangements for Rapid Antigen Detection tests which is a confirmatory test for Covid-19 positive tests, he said.

All private sector clinical establishments have been also directed to immediately instal a TrueNat system to further validate the Rapid Antigen Detection tests, prior to starting treatment, the minister said.