Telangana to adopt syndromic approach to contain Covid

The aim is to ensure everybody with symptoms gets access to early treatment, without waiting on the diagnosis

Hyderabad: The State government has started taking swift measures to adopt syndromic approach to contain Covid-19 infections during the second wave of the pandemic. The aim is to ensure everybody with Covid symptoms gets access to early treatment, without waiting on the diagnosis, so that hospitalisation and oxygen dependency is reduced across Telangana.

The current wave of SARS-CoV-2 infections surging across the country is quite different when compared to last year. This year, the spread of SARS-CoV-2 is widespread, quick and simultaneous at all locations. As a result, Covid infections have spread to rural areas, which was not the case in 2020. Barring district headquarters, local community in smaller towns and villages in the State, face challenges to access diagnostic facilities and treatment facilities, making it difficult to manage Covid cases in such areas.

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Public health officials have said that they have come across many instances where individuals with typical symptoms of Covid have tested negative (false negatives) multiple times in RT-PCR tests. “Instead of wasting time to undergo RT-PCR tests again or for that matter a CT-scan for confirmation, such individuals must be immediately put on Covid treatment so that their disease progression is halted. Moreover, public must also realise that RT-PCR also has limited sensitivity,” senior health officials told Telangana Today.

Syndromic approach of treating diseases is not new in Telangana. A few years ago, when swine flu was surging across the State, public health officials, instead of wasting time waiting for reports from NIV, Pune, to confirm the case, decided to start treating all individuals with symptoms as swine flu patients. In fact, recently, the neighbouring State of Karnataka had adopted syndromic approach for management of Covid-19.

According to Covid-19 National Task Force, in a syndromic approach, in case SpO2 or oxygen saturation monitoring is not available, then the suspected patients with breathing difficulty (air hunger, fast or laboured breathing pattern) could be assumed to be a case of a moderate to severe disease and treatment is started quickly. Under this approach, the National Task Force has made it clear that is not advisable to administer investigational or off-label therapies including Remdesivir, Tocilizumab and Favipiravir at home.

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