Most of 7 with UK strain in Delhi are asymptomatic, says LNJP Hospital

Of the 38 UK returnees isolated at Delhi’s Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital, 7 tested positive for the mutant strain that has originated in the UK.

Healthcare workers screen people entering LNJP hospital in New Delhi | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

New Delhi: Most of the seven UK returnees who have tested positive for the new variant of the coronavirus are asymptomatic, according to the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan (LNJP) Hospital, the capital’s dedicated facility for the treatment of all passengers who test positive from the European nation. 

Speaking to ThePrint, Chief Medical Officer Dr Ritu Saxena said a total of 38 travellers from the United Kingdom are now lodged in isolation rooms in the hospital of whom seven tested positive for the new Covid-19 variant. “Most of the seven are asymptomatic. None of them have shown severe complications yet and are all stable,” said Dr Saxena.

According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), 29 people have tested positive for the mutant strain of the virus in India as of Friday. 

Among the 29 cases, eight have been detected in National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), New Delhi, two in Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), New Delhi, five in National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, three in Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, 10 in National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, and one at the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG), Kalyani, the ministry said.

The results come 10 days after the Ministry of Civil Aviation suspended flights from the UK and increased surveillance at airports on 21 December. Between 25 November and 23 December, 33,000 passengers had arrived in airports across the country from the UK, according to the health ministry’s statement. 

Measures against new variant

In Delhi’s LNJP Hospital, a special ward spread across three floors with 20 rooms on each floor has been earmarked for those who landed here from the UK. The seven patients who are positive for the UK mutation are lodged in separate rooms. 

“We are ensuring that these patients don’t mingle with the other Covid patients and that’s why a separate ward has been earmarked for them,” said Dr Saxena. “Each bed has both oxygen and ventilator requirements if the need arises.”

Last week, the National Task Force (NTF) on Covid-19 decided at a meeting convened by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) that there was no need to change the existing treatment protocols in India. 

“In keeping with the central government guidelines, we are treating them with existing Covid protocols,” Dr Saxena said. “While most don’t have symptoms, those with symptoms we are giving Remdesivir and other drugs that we have been using for treating Covid patients. We are monitoring the oxygen saturation levels as well.”

Preparing to treat the new variant 

While the LNJP Hospital now has 60 beds across three floors to treat patients with the UK variant, the hospital said increasing capacity will not be an issue if the need arises. 

“In the coming days if there is a need to increase beds for patients with the UK variant, we will be able to do so as the number of Covid cases has come down in Delhi and we have enough capacity to deal with a surge in case it happens,” Dr Saxena said.

While LNJP is the only hospital in the capital that is treating all passengers from the UK who test positive for Covid-19, other Delhi government hospitals are also ensuring that they have the amenities in place in case the government asks them to take in these patients as well.

“We haven’t received any directive from the Delhi government yet but we have a separate ward for 45 patients all with oxygen beds. It will be used to treat these patients if the government wants us to,” said Dr B.L. Sherwal, medical director, Rajiv Gandhi Superspeciality Hospital.

The Delhi government-run Ambedkar Nagar Hospital too is ready for the intake of such patients because the treatment protocols are the same. 

“The government has just asked us to ensure that there’s a separate ward for those suspected to have the UK variant. Since we are close to the airport, last week we got a call from the government to keep a ward ready for the UK returnees so we had cleared out a ward of 49 beds for them,” said Dr Praveen Malick, medical director, Ambedkar Nagar Hospital. “But then the government said that they will not be sending the patients here so we went back to normal functioning. But if the need arises, we can easily earmark separate wards for such patients.”