Covid can coexist with dengue, malaria: Centre

(Strap) Case doubling rises to 74.9 days, says Health Minister

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Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 13

The Centre today said Covid could coexist with a range of seasonal diseases. The hospitals have been asked to be ready to handle a potentially high burden of severe dengue and malaria cases along with the virus.

Issuing guidelines to deal with co-infections, the Health Ministry said the seasonal pattern of epidemic-prone diseases, like dengue, malaria, chikungunya, and enteric fever, observed annually in India could not only present a diagnostic dilemma to doctors, but also coexist in Covid cases.

“This poses challenges in clinical and laboratory diagnosis of Covid and has a bearing on clinical management and patient outcomes,” the ministry said while issuing guidelines on prevention and treatment of co-infections of Covid, dengue, malaria, seasonal influenza (H1N1) among others.

Covid and seasonal influenza can also present as influenza-like illness and therefore all such cases also need to be evaluated and tested for the virus, the guidelines say.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan chaired the 21th meeting of the Group of Ministers on Covid and hailed India’s case fatality rate of 1.53% as the lowest globally. At 62,27,295, India has the highest recovery rate of 86.78% and also the case doubling time has increased to 74.9 days, he said.

Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu have the highest recovery rate of 96.25% and Kerala has the lowest recovery rate of 66.31%.