Showing concern over the panic produced by the shortage of Remdesivir, an antiviral drug, Maharashtra’s COVID-19 task force has said that it was not a life-saving medicine in coronavirus treatment, and strongly cautioned against its “rampant and irrational abuse”.
The task force also advised that medical oxygen should be used judiciously at the time of coronavirus pandemic.
The task force, directed by Dr Sanjay Oak, did these remarks in the advisory it issued after its meeting held on Monday.
“Remdesivir is not a life-saving drug in coronavirus and it is helpful during the second to the ninth day of illness and not thereafter”, it said.
“It only arrests the replication of the virus and therefore reduces the hospital stay and convalescence of the patient by one-two days. This leads to a reduction in the hospital stay by two days at the most. It is possible to save patients even without Remedesivir,” the task force said in the advisory.
It also added that though it would like to drop the decision to use the drug to the responsibility of the treating doctor, it strongly advises against the rampant, irrational abuse of this drug. It advised the state government to issue guidelines to hospitals to check all their routine work that consumes oxygen.
“Cancel all routine surgeries and routine admissions to hospitals. This will save a significant amount of oxygen,” the advisory reads.
Oxygen audit committees should be formed in hospitals to monitor oxygen usage, said the task force.
The hospitals had to change the target oxygen saturation level to 93 per cent to 95 per cent, it added.
The task force said that patients be asked to “awake prone ventilation” way to improve the oxygen saturation and stop the use of high flow nasal oxygen machines (HFNO) until further notice as it uses a large quantity of oxygen.
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