India Amends Discharge Guidelines for Covid-19 patients

According to the latest guidelines the patients who have severe illness need to be tested (through a swab test) and a negative report obtained before discharge and other categories including very mild, pre-symptomatic and moderate cases, need not be tested before discharge.

In the wake of surge in the number of patients, Indian government has altered its discharge guideline policies for Covid-19 patients.

According to the latest guidelines the patients who have severe illness need to be tested (through a swab test) and a negative report obtained before discharge and other categories including very mild, pre-symptomatic and moderate cases, need not be tested before discharge.

Till date, patients could only be discharged only if two of their specimens tested negative for Covid-19 in RT-PCR swab tests after a gap of 24 hours.

The ministry of health and family welfare, in its revised guidelines, said that mild/very mild/pre-symptomatic cases admitted to a Covid-19 care facility will undergo regular temperature and pulse oximetry monitoring.

The patient can be discharged after 10 days of symptom onset and no fever for three days. “There will be no need for testing prior to discharge,” the revised guidelines said. It added that at the time of discharge, the patient will be advised to follow home isolation for seven days.

The revised policy further said that patients admitted to Covid-19 health centres, whose symptoms resolve within three days and who maintain oxygen saturation above 95 per cent for the next four days, will be clinically classified as “moderate cases”.

They will undergo monitoring of body temperature and oxygen saturation. If the fever resolves within three days and the patient maintains “saturation above 95% for the next four days, without oxygen support”, they will be discharged after 10 days of symptom onset in case of – absence of “fever without antipyretics, resolution of breathlessness and no oxygen requirement,” the guidelines said.

It added that there will be no need for testing prior to discharge in such cases as well.

Recently, the number of Covid-19 infections in the country has reached the 60,000 mark even though the health ministry has claimed that India’s recovery rate stands at 30 per cent with 17,846 Covid-19 recovered till now.