Dr. Randeep Guleria, director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), on May 24, said that medics must look out for post-COVID-19 symptoms in patients.
As the number of recoveries from the coronavirus disease shoot up, the number of people with post-COVID diseases is also likely to increase, he said and called for a multidisciplinary approach on part of the medical fraternity to treat cases of post-COVID infection in time.
Dr Guleria said that many patients have experienced symptoms even after recovering from COVID-19 and they need to be treated as well. “People can have prolonged signs after recovery such as problems with breathing, long spells of cough, high pulse rate. Chronic fatigue symptoms are also common. All this will require symptomatic treatment,” he said during a media briefing.
The AIIMS chief explained that if a patient continues to experience symptoms for four to twelve weeks after recovering, it is regarded as post-Covid acute syndrome and if symptoms last for more than 12 weeks, it is called post-COVID syndrome or long COVID.
Dr Guleria cautioned that some people may even experience a high pulse for days after recovering from the viral infection due to the body’s immune system or its inflammatory response.
The top doctor said that some COVID-19 recovered people may also complain of a condition, which is referred to as 'brain fog' on social media, marked by insomnia, depression, and lack of concentration.
Dr Guleria has suggested setting up separate rehabilitation centres for survivors witnessing post-COVID symptoms.
Dr. Guleri’s suggestion on Mucormycosis
After a person in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad was found to be infected with 'yellow fungus', Dr Guleria said people must refrain from identifying fungal diseases by colour as it causes confusion and instead refer to it as mucormycosis (better known as black fungus).
He highlighted that 95 percent of the patients with mucormycosis had diabetes and were on steroids. The AIIMS chief also clarified that "oxygen use linkage is not necessary for the disease" and that it is not communicable.
Dr Guleria also pointed out that a majority of the people getting mucormycosis at AIIMS were in an early stage of COVID-19.
(Edited by : Kanishka)
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