Over 1000 coronavirus patients have been released from hospitals in Bangladesh, the government says after changing treatment guidelines.
On Sunday, the health department confirmed fresh 665 cases, highest in a day, by testing 5368 samples in 24 hours till 8am, taking the tally of total infections to 9,455. Two more patients were died from the COVID-19 during that period.
With that, Additional Director General for Health Prof Nasima Sultana at the daily bulletin said 177 patients so far died from the disease since March 8 when the detected the first cases in Bangladesh.
She said 1,063 patients were recovered from hospitals under the new clinical management guidelines.
“Before telling you the updated situation, I’ll say something about the recovery,” she said at the beginning of the bulletin.
“Our clinical management committee set new guidelines about how we can say a patient recovered and released from hospitals. And with that guideline I would say so far 1,063 patients were recovered from hospitals. Of them 624 were from the Dhaka city and 439 from other divisions,” she said.
Professor of medicine Dr Tito Miah, who is involved in setting clinical guidelines, told Bangladesh Post that they would not wait 14 days to test and say ‘negative’ to a patient if they become symptoms free early.
“We have observed that many patients become free from the symptoms of the disease after two or three days of hospital admission, but then they have to wait 14 days or more for testing,” he said.
“We’ll discharge them and tell them stay at home. We have observed that the symptoms did not recur. If recur, they can come to hospital anytime.
“But there are benefits in such approach both for patients and for hospitals,” he told Bangladesh Post.
“Every day new patients are rising. So we need beds in hospitals. If we can discharge patients free from symptoms, then new patients can be admitted.
“And this is also good for a patient because a symptom free patient means he has less viral load compare to a new patient. So it’s better for them to stay at home than remain mixed with the new patients in hospitals,” Prof Tito Miah said.
He said the US, UK and many other countries have set their own guidelines to cope with the increasing number of patients.
A person’s viral load is how much of the virus they have in their body, whether in nasal swab or in blood samples.
WHO also suggested that all patients discharged home should be instructed to return to hospital if they develop any worsening of illness.
A doctor working in a COVID-19 hospital told Bangladesh Post that this discharge rule is like any other hospital admitted patients. “You see a patient after two or three days of surgery or with any other diseases gets release from hospital. And then he/she can still require staying at home for a certain period for full recovery and get strength to come back to work”.
Meanwhile, the additional director general said of the two new dead, one was aged between 10 to 20 years and another was above 60 years. One was from Rangpur and the other from Narayanganj.
Bangladesh recorded the first death from the virus on March 18. The WHO declared the virus pandemic on March 11.
So far, the government tested 81,434 samples.
The government is enforcing general holidays across Bangladesh to ensure social distancing. As the number of cases is rising, the holidays will be extended to May 16 from May 5.
The highly infectious coronavirus has claimed lives of 244,772 people globally as of Sunday morning. Of the currently infected 2,130,230 patients, 2,079,372 are in mild condition, which is 98 percent, according to worldometer.
Meanwhile, 50,858 of the currently infected patients are in serious condition, and their percentage is only two.
The virus was first reported in China in December last year. So far, it has infected 3,483,888 people globally, the worldometer data shows.
So far, 1,108,886 people have recovered from COVID-19.