Breathlessness a major symptom of Covid during the second wave: ICMR DG

Indian Council of Medical Research DG Dr. Balram Bhargava today said that breathlessness has been a major symptom of Covid during the second wave, unlike the previous wave where dry cough, joint pain, headaches were more prominent. “Breathlessness has invoked more requirement of oxygen, but the death percentage remains the same in both the waves,” he said.

While speaking to the news agency ANI, Dr. Bhargava blamed laxity, Covid inappropriate behaviour and various unidentified mutations of Covid for the deadly second wave which has been sweeping across the country. “We have had tremendous amount of laxity, Covid-19 inappropriate behaviour and various unidentified mutation, of them some are of concern —UK, Brazilian and South African variants, which have been demonstrated to have higher transmissibility.”

“We have also found a double mutant in India but the higher transmissibility of this is not established,” he added.

On demographics of Covid patient, Dr. Bhargava said that while the percentage of Covid patients above the age of 40 has been at 70 during both the Covid waves, there has been a slight increase in Covid patients aged between 0-19 and 20-40, during the second wave.

On RT-PCR test, he said, “RT-PCR test is gold standard, we measure two genes or more, therefore, there is no chance of missing detection of any mutant.”