Bengal logs 22,645 fresh cases; fatality rate dips to 1.07%

Kolkata: On a day Bengal reported over 22 thousand fresh Covid cases, Director of Health Services (DHS) Dr Ajay Chakraborty, on Friday, said that the health department had made available adequate stock of anti-Covid drugs in various hospitals in advance as a precautionary measure ahead of the recent surge. It was not possible for the health department to assume the magnitude of the surge before hand, said DHS. Dr Chakraborty's statement came in reaction to the Beliaghata ID Hospital incident.

Beliaghata ID Hospital has written to the State health department saying that a huge quantity of two medicines — Hydroxychloroquine and Favipiravir have been lying unused and if these medicines can be diverted to other hospitals.

Meanwhile, State health department on Friday formed a 3-member expert committee with the Head of the department of Gastroenterology at SSKM at its top to prepare guidelines for the treatment of Covid infected elderly people who have been undergoing treatment with various complications at the ICU and CCU of various hospitals.

The committee comprising of SSKM Gastroenterology Head Dr GK Dhali, Dr Avik Ghosh, an architect of Diamond Harbour 'Doctors' on Wheels' model and a senior doctor from Beliaghata ID Sanjeeb Banerjee will formulate guidelines as to how best treatment can be provided to the critical patients. The committee will also examine the details of the high risk patients in various critical care units.

Apart from some elderly complicated patients, most of the Omicron infected patients are undergoing treatment at home.

Most of the patients are not at all requiring hospitalisation except those comorbid patients.

Bengal on Friday administered 43,254 booster or precautionary doses of Covid vaccine on the health professionals, front-line workers and senior citizens. As many as 1,12,952 doses have been administered on youths in the age group 15-18 on Friday. The state has cumulatively administered over 11.32 crore doses so far in Bengal since the immunisation drive began. The health department administered around 6,46,104 doses among the general population on Friday.

Bengal has witnessed a slight drop in daily Covid infection on Friday with 22,645 new cases being detected. The number of daily infected cases stood at 23,467 on Thursday. The total number of infected cases reached 18,63,697 in Bengal so far. Out of this around 16,98,201 patients have been released from the hospitals after recovery.

Fatality rate in Bengal also dropped to 1.07 on Friday from what stood at 1.09 percent on Thursday. The positivity rate also dropped to 31.14 percent on Friday from 32.13 percent on Thursday. The recovery rate in the state remained at 91.12 percent on Friday. Around 28 fatalities were reported on Friday. The total death toll has gone up to 20,013 till Friday.