THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The upward trend in Covid-19 infection transmission has forced the government to come up with a revised discharge protocol. The health department is of the assessment that once discharge rate goes up, it could prevent a situation from hospitals getting crowded. The state on Wednesday recorded more recoveries than new cases with 7,729 discharged from hospitals and 6,244 infected with the virus. The test positivity rate (TPR) came down to 12.47% on the day from 18.16% the previous day. A total of 20 deaths were confirmed as due to Covid-19, which includes a five-month-old from Malappuram.
“Changes have been brought in the discharge criteria for category B patients - those with fever/severe sore throat/cough/rhinitis along with comorbidities like ailments to lung/heart/kidney/neurological disease/hypertension or those who are immunocompromised or pregnant women or those who are above 60. Instead of 14 days, they will now get tested using rapid antigen assay in the 10 days since the first positive result,” said K K Shailaja, Health Minister.
Earlier, in the discharge protocol released in July, it was stated that for asymptomatic, the antigen test for discharge will be carried out on the 10th day of the first positive result. If they test negative they will get discharged. If positive, the test will get repeated every alternate day till the test is negative for discharge.
Among category A patients (those having mild sore throat/cough/rhinitis/diarrhoea) the first antigen follow-up test will be conducted on them on the tenth day since the onset of symptoms if there are no symptoms. They will be discharged if they complete 10 days since the onset of symptoms or no symptoms for the last three days. If positive, the test will be repeated every alternate day until the test is negative for discharge.
In the case of category C patients (those having breathlessness, chest pain, drowsiness, fall in blood pressure or children with influenza-like illness or high/persistent fever, inability to feed well, respiratory distress and others or worsening of underlying chronic conditions), the first antigen follow-up test will be conducted on them on the 14th day since the onset of symptoms if there are no symptoms.
If they complete 14 days since the onset of symptoms or no symptoms for the last three days they will get discharged. If positive, antigen assay will get repeated every alternate day till the test is negative for discharge. Those who get discharged will be asked to avoid non-essential travel as well as social contacts like family visits, marriages or others for seven days after discharge. Of the cases reported on the day, 5,745 were contact cases, 364 were cases with unknown sources of infection, 99 were returnees and 36 were health workers.