Some Kolkata hospitals get severe patients with Delta-like Covid pneumonia – ET HealthWorld

Genome sequencing in the few samples since June beginning had found BA.5 sub-variant of Omicron as the dominant strain this time. Even as health officials said they were hopeful of lesser number of severe infection and mortality, what concerns doctors is Covid-19 pneumonia in a few patients which is unlikely due to Omicron or its sub-variants. Some hospitals are planning to send samples from such patients for genomic sequencing.

Bengal on Sunday logged three deaths for the second consecutive day. Between February 28 and June 21, the highest single day death count in the state was one with long stretches of zero death in between. While most of the deaths are being reported from among comorbid patients, who caught the infection incidentally and had no Covid-19 induced pneumonia, doctors have now started seeing patients requiring oxygen due to lung involvement.

“We have started seeing one of two severely infected patients. While we know that the current surge is being caused mostly by BA.5 and a few other variants of Omicron, the chest opacity in some patients is much like the kind of infection caused by Delta. We have requested the concerned health department officials if we could send one or two samples from these patients for genome sequencing to be sure about the variant,” said pulmonologist Raja Dhar, director pulmonology at CMRI.

TOI had earlier reported that BA.5 strain of Omicron was found in most samples that underwent genomic sequencing. With a rise in positivity, health officials said an increasing number of samples are being sent by labs for sequencing. Currently the norm is to send all positive samples within 30 CT value for whole genome sequencing that is being carried out at National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG) Kalyani.

“There is a gradual rise in ICU admission and in some patients we are finding the infection involving the lung. Omicron or its sub-variant like BA.5 is known to hit the upper respiratory track which we are seeing in majority of the infected. But in these few patients where the lung is getting affected could be due to some other strain,” said microbiologist Bhaskar Narayan Chaudhuri of Peerless Hospital.

“We haven’t got any Covid patient requiring ECMO support during this current surge. Some patients with lung involvement had comorbidity like COPD that had already hit the lung. Even these patients are not requiring too much of intensive support. But if the spike continues we might start getting a few serious patients again,” said critical care specialist Dipanjan Chatterjee of Medica Superspecialty Hospital.