BENGALURU: Nearly half of the 37 Covid-19 deaths in Karnataka have been high-risk patients. This includes Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI), Influenza Like Illness (ILI) cases and patients above 60 years, together accounting for 49%, as per the data of the state war room. Of these, SARI and ILI cases accounted for 31% deaths and those above 60 years, 18%. While there have been 75 SARI and ILI cases, with active ones at 20, there have been 114 patients above 60 years of age, with active cases, 42.
As of May 17, of the total active 596 cases in the State, 67 are high-risk ones. Gadag, Chitradurga and Dakshina Kannada have the highest percentage of high-risk cases in the State. With 11.2% (67 cases) of the cases being high risk at the moment, the Critical Care Support Team is analysing a wide net of patients right from Covid-19 suspects and asymptomatic patients, to SARI, ILI, senior citizens and even Covid-19 deaths that have occurred.
Dr Thrilok Chandra, Special Officer, CCST, said, “Most of the deaths were due to late reporting. Three cases were brought dead and 11-12 with co-morbidities came very late as they were shifted from private hospitals to government hospitals. Alarm tests are done to spot any kind of degeneration in a patient’s condition. Regular training of doctors from districts is done so they are aware of the protocol and get hands-on information.”
Dr Anoop Amarnath, Chief of clinical services, Manipal Hospitals who is part of CCST team and does e-rounds of patients, said, “Apart from checking on patients’ vitals, for those in the ICU and in need of life support, we check on the need for dialysis if their kidneys are not functioning, need for ventilatory support and need for inotropes that improve cardiac function by increasing their blood pressure.”
Instead of checking oxygen saturation levels intermittently, SARI cases are constantly on the pulse oximeter to check the levels, Dr Amarnath added. The death rate in Karntaka stands at 3.2% while the recovery rate is 44% with 509 recovered patients as of May 17. A treatment protocol with checklist for doctors is being followed. Around 1,000-1,200 cases have been analysed by the CCST team so far. Tests for critically ill patients such as D-DIMER for inflammation levels and CRP for infection levels are being done to judge the severity of the case.