Govt suggests anti-HIV drug blend for treatment as cases rise to 137; death in Maha raises nationwide toll to 3
With 137 positive cases by Tuesday evening and three deaths, latest in Tuesday in Maharashtra, the Government has decided to rope in accredited private labs to conduct tests for the infection and recommended anti-HIV drug combination Lopinavir-Ritonavir on case-to-case basis for treatment of the viral infection.
At present only Government labs are permitted to do the test and the Centre is making arrangements to nearly double its testing capacity. A Union Health Ministry officials said that around 60 accredited private laboratories are likely to be given permission to conduct the tests soon. Confirmatory tests for COVID-19 are currently being done free-of cost at Government set-ups.
As per the guidelines issued by the Government for private labs, test should be only offered when prescribed by a qualified physician as per ICMR guidance for testing. Since the guidance evolves periodically, the latest revised version should be followed.
The guidelines state that the ICMR will share the SOPs for laboratory testing and provide positive controls for establishing the test as soon as the private laboratory concerned has procured the primers, probes and reagents as per SOPs. Adoption of commercial kits for testing should be based on validations conducted by lCMR-National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune.
It also states that appropriate biosafety and biosecurity precautions should be ensured while collecting samples from a suspect patient. Alternatively, a disease specific separate collection site may be created.
All the private testing laboratories have been asked to ensure immediate/real-time reporting to the State officials of IDSP (Integrated Disease Surveillance Program of Government of India) and ICMR HQ for timely initiation of contact tracing and research activities.
Raman R Gangakhedkar, head of the Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases at ICMR, said the testing capacity is not an issue as per the capacity of 52 labs, India can conduct up to 10,000 tests per day at present.
“Around 600 samples are being tested per day,” he said, adding 60,000 testing kits are available now and additional 200,000 kits have been ordered.
According to the current testing protocols, only those with history of travel to high-risk countries affected by the respiratory virus and those who came in contact with positive patients have been asked to be quarantined for 14 days. Others with symptoms of the infection are being tested.
The official said the decision to allow anti-HIV drug combination on case-to-case basis follows the success in the treatment of an Italian elderly couple at Jaipur’s SMS hospital.
The couple had tested positive in the first week of March and their tests turned negative after being treated with the HIV drug.
As per its revised guidelines on the ‘Clinical Management of COVID - 19’ issued on Tuesday, the Ministry recommended Lopinavir-Ritonavir for high-risk groups patients aged above 60, suffering from diabetes mellitus, renal failure, chronic lung disease and are immuno-compromised.
To ascertain if there is any community transmission, the Ministry has also started random testing of people, who are suffering from respiratory ailments such as influenza and pneumonia but do not have a history of travel abroad.
Presently, around 1,040 samples of patients admitted at various hospitals, including private facilities, due to influenza-like illness and severe acute respiratory ailments have been collected and majority of them have been tested to check if the virus has infected those without a history of travelling abroad.
So far, none of the samples has tested positive for COVID-19. The final results will be declared on Wednesday.
In the meantime, the Centre and States continued their strategy to keep the virus at bay. The Centre issued a fresh travel advisory on Tuesday prohibiting passengers from Afghanistan, the Philippines, and Malaysia from travelling to India with immediate effect while the States like Gujarat banned entry of visitors to the Statue of Unity till March 25.
Tourism activities in national parks and tiger reserves in Uttarakhand, including Corbett and Rajaji, were prohibited till March 31 on Tuesday as a precautionary measure against coronavirus, an official order said.
With Maharashtra reporting 41 cases and one death, the Mumbai police have ordered closure of orchestra/dance bars, discotheques, pubs, live bands and DJ performances in city till March 31 in view of coronavirus threat. Similarly, the Srinagar district administration on Tuesday announced a slew of additional measures, including plans of televised classes for students, to ensure that there is no outbreak of coronavirus in the city and the Valley.
As a prevention measure, the Air Force on Tuesday postponed scheduled test for airmen recruitment planned at 86 cities from March 19 to March 23 to the last week of April, while Naval base under Southern naval Command in a Press statement said that it is gearing up to provide quarantine facilities for Indian nationals being evacuated from Covid-19 affected countries. In a bid to ensure effective management of the virus, the Centre has deputed 30 officers of Joint Secretary and above level to assist the State Government in their efforts.
The Centre’s move to ban entry from more countries followed concern that most of the cases reported in India have been related with travel history abroad as so far no community transmission of the virus has been observed and there have only been a few cases of local transmission so far.
So far 137 cases have been reported including 22 foreign nationals. Delhi has so far reported seven positive cases, while Uttar Pradesh has recorded 13 cases, including one foreigner. Karnataka has eight coronavirus patients while Maharashtra 39, including 3 foreigners. Ladakh has reported four cases while Jammu and Kashmir three. Telangana has reported four cases.
Rajasthan has also reported four cases including that of two foreigners. Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab have reported one case each. Odisha reported its first case on Monday. In Haryana, there are 15 cases, which includes fourteen foreigners, while Uttarakhand has reported one case.
Kerala has recorded 24 cases, including two foreign nationals. The number also includes three patients who were discharged last month after they recovered from the contagious infection with flu-like symptoms.
According to the Ministry’s data, 13 people have been discharged so far which includes the three patients from Kerala.