Srinagar Mar 17: Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) on Tuesday has urged health authorities in Kashmir to ramp up testing for the novel (new) coronavirus that has so far killed at least 7,468 people and infected 186,669 worldwide.
\n\u201cWe need to be aggressive in testing,\u201d said DAK President Dr Nisar ul Hassan.
\n\u201cThe key to prevent the spread of the disease is early detection of cases and that is by way of extensive testing,\u201d he said.
\nBased on data, Dr Nisar said most of the cases of the novel coronavirus, around 80% are mild and they don\u2019t turn up and go unreported. We need to find them and test them.
\n\u201cIf we don\u2019t expand testing, how can we say there is no community spread,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cNot only widespread testing will effectively reduce the risk of transmission of the virus in the community, but it will also save lives,\u201d Dr Nisar said.
\n\u201cIt was because of high rate of testing in South Korea that the mortality among those infected was quite low (0.6%),\u201d he added.
\nDr Nisar said under the new guidelines, anyone with symptoms compatible with the new coronavirus qualifies for diagnostic testing depending on the doctor\u2019s judgment.
\n\u201cClinicians should use their acumen to determine whether a symptomatic patient needs a test,\u201d he said.
\nDr Nisar said the testing should be prioritized for hospitalized patients, elderly and those with underlying medical conditions like heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, chronic lung disease and cancer.
\n\u201cBut, doctors should rule out other causes of respiratory illness particularly flu,\u201d he added.
\n\u201cEarlier, testing was restricted to those persons who had history of travel to the affected area or who had a history of close contact with a confirmed or a suspected case of novel coronavirus,\u201d said Dr Nisar.
\n\u201cThe new virus is diagnosed by collecting nasal and throat swab from suspects and after triple packing, samples are shipped on ice packs to the designated labs for testing,\u201d Dr Nisar said adding \u201cit is vitally important that doctors use personal protection equipment while taking samples from suspected patients.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Srinagar Mar 17: Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) on Tuesday has urged health authorities in Kashmir to ramp up testing for the novel (new) coronavirus that has so far killed at least 7,468 people and infected 186,669 worldwide. \u201cWe need to be aggressive in testing,\u201d said DAK President Dr Nisar ul Hassan. \u201cThe key to prevent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-union-territory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21021\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}