GUWAHATI: Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday said that aggressive treatment of COVID patients in moderate stage has been effective so far with recovery rate improving after administration of anti-viral medication.
“After discussions among medical colleges and frontline hospitals, the collective decision was to initiate aggressive treatment of moderate stage patients through oxygen therapy, anti-viral medicine apart from steroids to stop mortality,” Sarma said.
“Remdesivir, (an anti-viral medicine approved for COVID treatment), has been administered on 83 patients in the state so far and 36 of them have recovered after completion of their therapy. The mortality after administration of the medicine has come down to four,” he said.
Sarma further said that in case of failure to cure patients in moderate stage, they are admitted to intensive care units. “So far, Assam has had 118 COVID patients in ICUs and 45 have been cured from critical stage. As of now the state has 53 COVID patients in ICUs,” the minister said.
Till Thursday evening, Assam had a total tally of 19,754 COVID positive cases with 6815 active cases.
“The recovery rate in the state is very encouraging at 65.24 per cent even as the cases have increased. However, the third wave has come relatively late in Assam. Between June 15 and July 15, the state has registered 12,218 cases compared to just 4,309 cases in the first three months,” he said.
The minister further said that Assam has conducted close to 6 lakh tests and that the process of conducting rapid antigen tests has started across the state from Thursday.
“By next month, the state will have 19 RT-PCR labs. Three more labs for RT-PCR tests would come up within a week including another three next month,” he added.