The Union Health Ministry has initiated an exercise to document data on post-Covid complications as part of which the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) is likely to carry out a telephonic survey among recovered patients in the country using existing database.

The ministry has drafted a format for gathering the information on post-Covid-19 complications faced by patients from across states and union territories, news agency PTI reported citing its sources.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is concurrently working on developing a registry of post-COVID-19 sequelae to capture data on the same.

While some people may call it paranoia, others may think of it as prudent to isolate themselves if they begin to show symptoms associated with the common flu, including fever. Doctors say that while fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, every onset of fever should be suspected and investigated for the virus, albeit without panicking. Fevers commonly associated with monsoon related illnesses include malaria, dengue, leptospirosis, enteric fever, viral hepatitis, etc. As such, Dr. Sandeep Patil, Chief Intensivist and Physician, Fortis Hospital, Kalyan, says that while it is always important to seek timely medical treatment, there is also a need to differentiate between COVID-19-related fever and the common flu. Here is what you need to know. 

Odisha's Women and Child Development and Mission Shakti Minister Tukuni Sahu on Friday said that she has tested positive for COVID-19.

Sahu became the fifth minister in the state to be infected by coronavirus. Earlier, Rural Development Minister Susant Singh, Higher Education Minister Arun Kumar Sahoo, Textile Minister Padmini Dian and Tourism Minister J P Panigrahi had tested positive for the infection, PTI reported.

I have tested Covid positive.
Now I am in home isolation and stable.
Those who have come in contact with me in the last few days are requested to get themselves tested if required.@CMO_Odisha @IPR_Odisha

— Tukuni Sahu (@TukuniSahu) September 11, 2020

Adding more than 20,000 new coronavirus cases a day for the last few days, Maharashtra is all set to hit the one million mark on Friday. After a prolonged slowdown during which the state’s daily growth rate had steadily declined even as it continued to contribute the largest number of cases in the country, Maharashtra has changed gears in the last three weeks, with a spurt in the new cases being discovered. In fact, the growth rate had fallen below 2 per cent per day, to about 1.86 per cent at the end of August, but it has started rising again. The current daily growth rate in Maharashtra 2.32 per cent, much more than the national rate of 2.13 per cent. It is the first time in three months that Maharashtra has started to grow faster than the country as a whole. Click here to read more.

Maharashtra minister Vishwajeet kadam today tested positive for coronavirus. He is the tenth minister in the state government to have been infected.

As part of a testing drive for resident doctors in the AMC-run hospitals conducted this week, at least 35 resident doctors have tested positive for Covid-19. Overall, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation limits has reported over 50 do ctors testing positive in the past three days. According to a senior doctor who is part of the hospital administration as well at SVP Hospital, 24 resident doctors tested positive on Wednesday and “another one or two” tested positive on Thursday. The official also confirmed that the state government’s core committee of medical experts member and head of department of general medicine at SVP Hospital, Dr Ami Parikh, has tested positive.

The Gujarat government is considering to give maximum possible relaxation for the annual festival of Navratri, within the limits of the Covid-19 guidelines issued by the Supreme Court, the Gujarat High Court and the Centre, said Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel on Thursday. Patel said that an announcement in this regard would be made by the state government as early as possible. Navratri starts on October 17.

Kerala Industries Minister E P Jayarajan tested positive for coronavirus, becoming the second member of the Pinarayi Vijayan cabinet to be infected by the virus. Jayarajan and his wife, who has also contracted the disease, was admitted to the Pariyaram Medical college hospital in Kannur, government sources said. Earlier, Finance Minister Thomas Isaac had tested positive for the virus. Jayarajan, who was in the primary contact of Isaac, was under quarantine at his home in Kannur. His sample had been sent for testing three days ago and returned positive today.

A committee, appointed by the state government to verify the bill amounts charged by private hospitals for treatment of Covid-19 patients, has found that  a private hospital in Bhosari, Desai Accident and General Hospital, has been treating such patients without proper permission. The committee has asked the PCMC administration to seal the hospital. Hospital authorities, however, claimed they had permission from PCMC to treat Covid-19 patients. The committee has also issued notices to 16 hospitals, asking them why action should not be taken against them for “giving inflated bills to patients”. These hospitals have also been asked to refund nearly Rs 36 lakh, the amount they overcharged by violating government norms.

With the price of RTPCR test kits and reagents used for coronavirus testing coming down, the Uttar Pradesh government has reduced the charge for conducting Covid-19 test to Rs 1,600 from Rs 2,500 by all labs including those privately owned. "The prices of RTPCR test kits and reagents used for COVID tests have come down. Hence, the April order on pricing of the test has been amended. The maximum price of test will now be Rs 1,600," said Additional Chief Secretary Amit Mohan Prasad in an order issued on Thursday evening. This is the second time that the price of the virus test had been reduced. When private labs were first allowed testing via RTPCR, the fee for each test was Rs 4,500 which wa then reduced to Rs 2,500 in April. 

With the ‘jumbo’ Covid care facility at CoEP yet to be fully functional and Sassoon General Hospital facing its own share of oxygen supply-related problems, large private hospitals in Pune are not only sharing the maximum burden of treating Covid-19 patients but also grappling with serious healthcare staff shortage, with an attrition rate of 8 to 9 per per cent, and rising. There are over 38,000 active Covid-19 cases in Pune district, and areas under Pune Municipal Corporation have been reporting over 2,000 Covid-19 cases daily, while neighbouring PCMC has reported over 1,200 cases daily. The city has also seen an influx of patients not just from rural areas of the district but also from other districts like Ahmednagar, Jalgaon, Satara, Sangli and even districts of Marathwada. Six months into the worldwide pandemic, a sense of fatigue has now set in as private hospital administrators admit to shortage of healthcare staff and the steady rise in number of non-Covid patients who require hospitalisation, but there just aren’t enough beds.

All public transport, offices and other commercial establishments, barring those dealing with essential services, remained closed as West Bengal observed its bi-weekly lockdown on Friday. The lockdown was also almost total in Kolkata and in districts barring some places like Purulia town, Asansol, Durgapur where some grocery shops and vegetable vendors did brisk business in the morning before police stepped in, PTI reported. All the markets, shops, commercial establishments were closed while pharmacies remaine opened. Police made some arrests in city and elsewhere for violations of lockdown norms.

Arunachal Pradesh's Covid-19 caseload rose to 5,672 as 127 more people including 14 security personnel have tested positive for the virus, a senior Health department official told PTI on Friday. Of the fresh cases, Capital complex region reported the highest number at 57, followed by Papumpare (18), East Siang (12), Lower Subansiri (11), Lower Dibang Valley (10), Upper Siang (5) and Lohit (4), the official said. Two cases each were also reported in Tirap, Longding and Upper Subansiri and one each in Lohit, East Kameng, Tirap and Upper Siang districts, State Surveillance Officer Dr L Jampa, said. "Fourteen security personnel including seven ITBP personnel and six state policemen and one army jawan are among the fresh cases," the official said, adding a that health care worker from Upper Subansiri was also infected with the virus.

Kolkata Police Commissioner Anuj Sharma tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday as the state recorded 3,112 new cases, pushing up the infection count to 1,93,175. Sharma has mild symptoms and has isolated himself at home. His diagnosis came a couple of days after he attended a “Police Day” programme at the state secretariat in which Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and other senior officials were present. “He took the test yesterday [Wednesday] and it confirmed the infection today. He is in home isolation at the moment,” said a senior city police official.

The West Bengal Clinical Establishment Commission has asked a nursing home near Kolkata to deposit Rs 5 lakh while it investigates a complaint accusing the medical facility of diagnosing a Covid-19 patient within minutes of conducting a test. Questions have been raised about the veracity of the “test”. Click here to read more.

At least 0.73 per cent adults in India were exposed to SARS-CoV-2 amounting to a total of 6.4 million infections by early May, the first national serosurvey conducted by the ICMR, published in the Indian Journal of Medical Research, indicated. Also, seropositivity was the highest in the age group of 18-45 years (43.3 per cent), followed by those between 46-60 years (39.5 per cent) and it was the lowest among those aged above 60 (17.2 per cent). "The findings of our survey indicated that the overall seroprevalence in India was low, with less than one per cent of the adult population exposed to SARS-CoV-2 by mid-May 2020. The low prevalence observed in most districts indicates that India is in early phase of the epidemic and the majority of the Indian population is still susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection," the report said.

The UP government on Thursday fixed the cost of treatment of Covid patients in private hospitals and also reduced the price of RT-PCR and TrueNat tests to Rs 1,600 from Rs 2,500 earlier. Additional Chief Secretary (Medical & Health) Amit Mohan Prasad said that charging more than the decided amount will be considered violation of Epidemic Disease Act. As per a letter issued by Prasad to all the DMs and the CMOs, the rate for isolation beds including supportive care and oxygen at NABH accredited hospitals in Tier-A cities will not be more than Rs 10,000 per day, while non-accredited hospitals can charge a maximum of Rs 8,000 per day. Similarly, for ICU without ventilator care, the NABH accredited hospitals can charge Rs 15,000 and non-accredited can charge Rs 13,000. At NABH hospitals, the maximum charge for ICU with ventilator care will Rs 18,000 per day and the same would be Rs 15,000 for non-accredited hospitals. All the charges would include the PPE cost, the government said.

Concerned over the surge in the number of Covid-19 cases, Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa Thursday directed district administrations to work towards bringing down the death rate related to the pandemic. “District administrations should ensure special attention is paid to bring down the death rate while taking precautions of not getting infected,” he said, adding that the government was taking all measures to contain the pandemic.

Reiterating that all symptomatic negative cases of rapid antigen tests (RAT) must mandatorily take an RT-PCR retest for Covid, the Centre on Thursday directed all states to set up two teams each, at the level of the district and the state, to monitor and ensure that no potentially positive case is missed out. Symptomatic negative cases are those where the patient has symptoms of Covid, but tests negative. Since rapid antigen tests are known to have high degre of false negatives, the ICMR had mandated that symptomatic negative cases must get a retest through RT-PCR. Government sources, part of the team monitoring the pandemic, said the decision came after they found that a “few big states” are now reporting a significantly high percentage of symptomatic negatives not being retested through RT-PCR, thereby spreading the infection among the general population.