About 30% of patients with flu-like symptoms Covid +ve; majority recovering fast: Experts

kolkata: Around 30 per cent of the patients having flu symptoms are Covid positive and most of these patients, who are getting infected with Covid are recovering fast, observed the health experts in the city. Around 1 per cent of the total infected people are turning critical this time.

Experts pointed out that many of the people are complaining about fever, sore throat, body aches, cough, running nose, redness of eyes, diarrhea and exhaustion.

If someone is affected with any of these symptoms, he/she should isolate, experts said. They will also have to consult doctors and undertake a Covid test if required.

Dr G Mukherjee, a senior pathologist in the city said that in most of the Covid cases, fever persists in patients for two days while other symptoms remain for 3-4 days.

The patients complained of tiredness for a few more days. In this current phase, people are losing food tastes or smells like the previous waves. Covid is also prevalent among the children, many of whom are complaining of diarrhea and redness on eyes. Those patients , who have multiple comorbidities, are developing serious issues after being infected with Covid, they opined.

Around 10 per cent of those suffering from heart ailments are turning out to be Covid positive.

The recent sentinel survey report said that over 85 per cent of the Covid infected patients did not take Covid vaccine. Genome sequencing of Covid positive samples revealed that Omicron sub-variants BA.4 and BA.5 have started replacing the BA.2 alternative that caused the surge in cases of the infection in Bengal earlier this year.

According to health experts, it is mostly sub-variant BA.5, which has features identical to BA.2, that is responsible for the recent spike in coronavirus cases in the state.

Genome sequencing is being carried out on positive samples in the state. A few sub-variants of Omicron, mostly the BA.4 and BA.5 were found. But there is nothing to worry about. The BA.5 sub-variant, though highly infectious, is not that threatening except for those who have no comorbidities, a senior health official said.