VIJAYAWADA: A day after Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy said that paracetamol can be used to fight COVID-19, Dr P Nancharaiah, Superintendent of Government General Hospital (GGH), Vijayawada, has explained the reasons as to why paracetamol can be used to treat the symptomatic patients. Addressing mediapersons here on Monday, Dr Nancharaiah said, “It is completely safe to take paracetamol if anyone suffers from fever. The foremost symptom of coronavirus is high temperature.
In such a case, one can take a paracetamol tablet at primary level, which is for the first two days. If the temperature does not come down even after two days, then the person should see a doctor. Paracetamol does not cause any harm to the kidneys as it is a drug that is used in treatment of fever caused by viruses.”
He further said, “Paracetamol is the first and primary medicine that we give even in the extreme situation when the fever enters the brain. Even in that situation, the temperature will come down considerably. That is the reason why one should take a paracetamol tablet immediately even if the body temperature is slightly above normal.” “In case of viral infections, antibiotics are prescribed. At present, WHO has not prescribed any antibiotic for coronavirus and so paracetamol is the maximum that can be taken, after which one should see a doctor,” said Dr Nancharaiah.
40 samples tested at lab
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has granted permission to test samples at the microbiology lab of Siddhartha Medical College. “Henceforth, all the samples can be tested here itself. This will help in fastracking the process of getting the results,” said Dr Nancharaiah. While extraction of virus from the swab takes three hours, another three hours are taken to test it post-extraction. Now, the results can be obtained within six hours compared to 48 to 72 hours taken earlier when the samples were sent to either Hyderabad or Pune. So far, the samples of 40 persons who visited corona-hit countries, have been tested at the lab here and not a single sample has tested positive, he said.