BENGALURU: Senior citizens above the age of 60, who suffer from COVID-like symptoms, must come forward for testing, especially if they have co-morbidities, Minister for Medical Education Dr K Sudhakar said on Monday. “The patients who died due to COVID-19 in Karnataka were in range of 55-80 years. We will be aggressively testing this category. Senior citizens with cold, cough and fever should come in for testing, especially if they have co-morbidities such as asthma, lung problems, heart problems, liver disease, tuberculosis or have recently recovered from tuberculosis, alcohol use, viral hepatitis, neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s, stroke, diabetes, hypertension, blood disorders, cancer, HIV/AIDS etc,” Sudhakar said. He also mentioned Dos and Don’ts for senior citizens.
“Avoid visitors at home if there are elders. If elders live alone, they can take the help of healthy neighbours for essentials. They should not go to the market and avoid crowded places. They should be active at home, eat green leafy vegetables and drink lots of water. As per the 2011 census, 57.91 lakh people, or 7.7 per cent of our state accounts for people aged above 60,” he said.
“If senior citizens come in at the last minute, no hospital will be able to save them. Many reached us in the ventilator and ICU stage, and passed away,” he added. “We are at No. 11 in the country. For every 59 people we test, 1 person is infected in our state. Rapid test kits will be used for random testing, although there is a problem of showing false negatives. We aim to open 60 labs for testing by May-end,” Sudhakar said. He announced that the 7th pay scale will be implemented for doctors in government super- speciality hospitals.