PATNA: With Bihar among the states bearing the brunt of the Covid-19 second wave, the state chapter of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has reiterated that CM Nitish Kumar must impose an immediate lockdown to break the chain of transmission.
Senior vice-president of the IMA Dr Ajay Kumar, through a statement, said the national president-elect Dr Sahajanand Prasad Sing had also earlier demanded a total lockdown in the country for at least a fortnight. Dr Kumar said he had talked to some top health experts and health administrators in Bihar and they also agreed on the need for a total lockdown in the state.
Bihar reported 13,534 fresh Covid cases on Sunday taking the total count of active cases to 109945. There was a 77.36% drop in the recovery rate. The state also witnessed 97 Covid deaths, including that of the younger brother of former deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi.
Dr Ajay Kumar said director of IGIMS Dr NR Biswas was another doctor who supported the need of a total lockdown in the state.
Dr Kumar also quoted Dr PK Singh , the director of AIIMS Patna, the principal of Patna Medical College, Dr Vidyapat Chaudhary, and Dr Binod Kumar Singh, the superintendent of Nalanda Medical College and Hospital (NMCH), and said all these experts too have supported the need for an immediate lockdown in Bihar.
The Nalanda Medical College and Hospital is a Covid-dedicated hospital while the Patna Medical College and Hospital is one of the biggest hospitals in the country.
Quoting NMCH's Dr Singh, Dr Ajay Kumar, who is senior vice president of IMA, said that even simple restrictions imposed now by the government are yielding results and if the lockdown is imposed, it will certainly ease the situation to a great extent.
He added that both Dr Singh and the superintendent of the Netaji Subhash Chandra Medical College and Hospital at Bihta Dr Uday Kumarhad had said that if the lockdown was implemented earlier, the situation could have been under control now.
"Besides all of them, I have talked to many specialists in the medical fraternity and they have strongly echoed the same sentiment," Dr Ajay Kumar said, adding that the government should have taken the opinion of medical experts to check the pandemic. He also said that the IMA will start a movement demanding immediate lockdown in the state soon.
According to IMA sources, more than 46 doctors have lost their lives during the second wave of the pandemic in the state while hundreds of them are still infected with the coronavirus. The IMA condoled the deaths of the 46 doctors by observing a two-minute silence for the departed on Sunday.