Jamshedpur: After a new strain of the coronavirus was detected in the United Kingdom (UK), officials at the
Tata Main Hospital (TMH), which is one of the leading Covid-19 hospitals in Jharkhand, said the hospital is ready to tackle the mutated virus but urged people of the state to take utmost care.
Highlighting that the new strain is capable of spreading fast, Dr Rajan Chaudhry, the medical advisor of Tata Steel which runs TMH, said, "Unlike the Covid-19 virus prevailing in the country, the mutated virus detected in the UK is far more infective and medical experts are still studying its fatality in laboratories across the globe. We need to be extra careful for the next three months or till the vaccine is ready."
He stressed that a second wave of the virus cannot be ruled out and that the state government is yet to come up with an official communication on the preparations for the new strain. "TMH is always ready to tackle any exigency arising out of it," the official said.
Noting that TMH has conducted one lakh Covid tests so far, Chaudhry said the total tests comprises 52,000 Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) and 48,000 RT-PCR tests.
He further said there is a considerable drop in the number of Covid cases in East Singhbhum district as compared to the peak of the pandemic in the state (mid-July to early October) when an average of 350 positive cases was reported every week. "Currently, the district reports 35 cases per week," Chaudhry said.
The medical advisor also said currently 44 Covid patients are under treatment at the hospital and about 20 recovered patients visited the post-Covid care centre daily. "Fifty per cent of these recovered patients came to our centre because of some post-recovery symptoms like fatigue and the rest reported body ache and other respiratory ailments like pneumonia," Chaudhry said.
He added, "It takes close to four weeks for the recovered patients to recuperate from these post-recovery symptoms.”