PUNE: Following the rise in the number of coronavirus cases and deaths in Maharashtra's Pune district, the administration on Saturday urged private doctors to help them formulate a "treatment protocol" for COVID-19 patients.
District collector Naval Kishore Ram said the administration was working on a treatment protocol for COVID- 19 patients and conducting an assessment of casualties so far. "We are probing to find out if patients had died only because of comorbidity or there were other factors involved. We are taking help from private doctors," he said.
The collector said that experts are also trying to understand how a patient's health deteriorates in the isolation period and the causes behind it.
Citing the factors that lead to COVID-19 deaths, Ram said not all patients died of pneumonia and every case was different. "Pulmonary ailments and respiratory failure are also some of the major causes for these deaths," he said.
He added that the authorities were also trying to figure out what they may encounter in the next stage of the pandemic. "We have set up an expert committee and approached 10 to 15 private medical practitioners to join us," he said.
Appealing to doctors from private hospitals, the collector said the district administration will take care of their fees and cost of the equipment.
According to health officials from the Pune Municipal Corporation, so far 26 people with comorbidities had succumbed to the virus in the district, of whom two were in their 70s, 13 in their 60s and seven in their 50s. Incidentally, none of the deceased COVID-19 patients had history of foreign travel.