Virus acute in 5% patients with respiratory illness

Mortality rate in TS at 2.82% as against 2.86% nationally, expert committee tells CM

A meeting convened by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao with the State-level committee of health experts to study global developments on COVID-19 discussed that the mortality rate among coronavirus patients was high only in the case of those who suffered from Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI).

They constituted 5% of the total patients and needed utmost care, the committee informed Mr. Rao.

A release said 80% of the patients did not show any symptoms and required no medical treatment. Another 15% patients suffered from cold, cough, fever, breathlessness and other influenza-like illnesses. But, they recovered in a short time. The virus was acute in the remaining 5% patients affected by SARI.

The experts explained that global developments on spread of coronavirus dispelled fears about the disease as various studies and assessment by World Health Organisation showed that a majority of the affected people did not have minimum symptoms even after they were diagnosed positive.

The mortality rate at the national level was 2.86% and 2.82% in Telangana. The people who died had other serious complications, it said. A welcome feature was that the virus did not intensify after relaxation of lockdown norms leading to movement of people on roads.

On the whole, the situation was not scary but people must be on guard and observe precautions because the vaccine and medicines to treat the virus have not been discovered.

Mr. Rao agreed with the observations of experts that the situation was not alarming as there were no symptoms in many of the affected persons. However, there symptoms were visible in some of them and needed medical attention. Those seriously affected should be confined to hospitals.

He asked officials to be vigilant towards patients who tested positive but did not show symptoms. He expected the number of positive cases to go up in the country in two or three months. The government was geared to provide treatment to any number of positive patients in the State.

The meeting was attended by five Ministers, including K.T. Rama Rao, Chief Adviser to government Rajeev Sharma, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, Director General of Police M. Mahender Reddy, Director of Medical Education Ramesh Reddy, Vice-Chancellor of Kaloji Health University Karunakar Reddy and Director of Public Health Srinivas among others.