In India, 92 per cent of Covid-19 patients got only a mild form of the disease while about 5.8 per cent patients required oxygen therapy and 1.7 per cent needed intensive care, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan told the Lok Sabha Monday on the opening day of the Monsoon Session.
While claiming that the 24 March decision to impose the harshest lockdown in the world prevented 14-29 lakh cases and 37,000-78,000 deaths, the Minister said that around 13 states in the country are reporting the maximum number of coronavirus cases on daily basis.
Even as on Monday, the total number of Covid-19 cases in India stood at 48,46,427 with 79,722 deaths, Dr Harsh Vardhan said that the country has now moved from ‘managing travel-related cases’ to containing clusters and large outbreaks due to local transmission to wide spread of infection to urban, peri-urban and rural areas.
“This would require concerted effort by the Government with people’s participation to prevent large scale morbidity and mortality,” he added.
“Many of the epidemiological parameters such as mode of transmission, subclinical infection, period of virus shedding, role of immunity etc. are still being researched. Once a person is exposed to the infection, the disease may develop anytime between 1 and 14 days. The main symptoms of Covid are fever, cough, and difficulty in breathing,” the Minister told the House.
Dr Harsh Vardhan also said expenditure finance memorandum of Rs 65,560.98 crore under the Prime Minister Atmanirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana for strengthening the health sector is under consideration. This includes investment in research, healthcare and public health infrastructure, with particular focus on pandemic management.
The health minister told MPs that 13 clinical trials of repurposed drugs and harnessing of traditional knowledge using the modern medicine approach are building a portfolio of therapeutic options for Covid-19 patients.
“Phase 2 clinical trial of immunomodulator Sepsivac has been completed successfully. Phase 2 clinical trial of the first-ever phytopharmaceutical ACQH is under way. One prophylactic trial of Aswagandha and three trials of Guduchi + Pippali; Yashtimadhu; and polyherbal AYUSH drug (AYUSH-64) are planned on moderately ill Covid-19 patients,” Dr Harsh Vardhan said.
“Globally, there are around 145 candidate vaccines in preclinical evaluation and currently 35 vaccines in clinical trial. In India, a major focus has been on facilitating the development of Covid-19 vaccine. More than 30 vaccine candidates have been supported which are in different stages of development, 3 candidates are in advanced stage of Phase I/II/III trials and more than 4 are in advanced pre-clinical development stage,” he said.
The Covid-19 Bio-repositories have collected more than 40,000 samples for use by researchers developing diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines. The health minister also spoke about the shift in focus from only Covid to other non-Covid diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria, which ended up being partially neglected during the lockdown.
“Equally crucial is to maintain the success achieved in management of reproductive maternal and child health, vaccine preventable diseases, non-communicable diseases, tuberculosis, vector borne diseases such as Kala Azar and Malaria. Hence, there is an increased thrust for managing non-Covid essential services,” the minister said.