Home isolation may curb Omicron surge

Hyderabad: Home based isolation to recover from Omicron variant driven Covid-19 infections could play a vital role in the next few months in Telangana. With studies indicating that Omicron is highly transmissible and at the same time possibly less severe than the Delta variant, the State healthcare machinery is gearing up to the possibility of […]

Hyderabad: Home based isolation to recover from Omicron variant driven Covid-19 infections could play a vital role in the next few months in Telangana.

With studies indicating that Omicron is highly transmissible and at the same time possibly less severe than the Delta variant, the State healthcare machinery is gearing up to the possibility of having to provide services to a large number of Omicron positive cases needing home isolation and not hospitalisation.

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As part of these efforts, the health wing is preparing ground to deploy Home Isolation Treatment and Monitoring Protocol (HITAM) and also procure over 25 lakh home isolation kits that will provide guidance and medicines to Omicron variant positive patients, needing home isolation to recover.

“Given the high transmissibility and less severity of the Omicron variant, there could be a situation where there will be large number Covid-19 infections that do not need hospitalisation but need home isolation care. We are preparing for such situations to meet the needs of patients by procuring over 25 lakh home isolation kits,” Director of Public Health (DPH) Dr G Srinivasa Rao, said.

Apart from distributing medicine kits, a vital part of home isolation care will be monitoring the progression of symptoms and treatment compliance among patients by trained tele-callers. These measures, which are part of the HITAM initiative, were rolled out from the state-of-the-art call centre and monitoring facility in Hyderabad that was inaugurated during the second Covid wave.

Home based isolation treatment and monitoring facility includes quick identification of Covid-19 positive patients at testing centres and depending on the patient’s health condition advice home isolation or hospitalisation. Patients needing home isolation are immediately provided home isolation kits that comprise medicines, as per doctor’s advice and later on their health condition is monitored remotely by trained tele-callers.

In case of clinical deterioration like continuous fever, breathlessness etc., especially in high-risk groups/co-morbid conditions, patients are immediately shifted to hospitals. The tele-callers are trained to identify such cases that have to be escalated for hospitalisation.
The tele-callers will have information on emergency ambulances and bed-availability at Covid hospitals for quick transportation and admission.

While there is no specific medicine that has so far been included in the treatment guidelines for Omicron positive patients, the health authorities said that general medicines like paracetamol, cetrizine, broad spectrum antibiotics like doxycycline, supplements like Vitamin C will be part of the home isolation kit, apart from specific directions printed in pamphlets.

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