Jahangeer Ganaie
Srinagar, Apr 21: The second wave of Covid-19 has started to prove more lethal and infectious than the first wave as a 19-year-old girl from Budgam with no Comorbidities died just within a week after contracting the virus, at a Srinagar hospital on Wednesday.
Dr Nisar ul Hassan, a flu expert and the President Doctors Association Kashmir, said that the second wave of the Covid-19 is proving to be more lethal as it is more infectious than the first wave and there is need to ramp up genome sequencing.
He said that the teenage girl from Budgam had a five day history of breathlessness and was admitted at SMHS on April 15 with severe bilateral pneumonia.
“On the very next day she developed acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and was put on a ventilator,” the doctor said. “Despite giving the best, her condition deteriorated and she died today.” The virus had damaged her lungs, kidney and other organs. “She is the youngest Covid victim of current year,” he said.
Dr Nisar said that the second wave is behaving differently and is attacking multiple organs other than lungs. “More and more young people are being admitted in hospital with no underlying problems but their condition is severe,” he said.
In the first wave of Covid-19, it was effecting only elderly people and patients with comorbidities but this wave has started to affect young people and there is a need to check the presence of mutant variants by ramping up genome sequencing.
He said that in many cases, RTPCR is coming negative for Covid-19 but CT is showing virus, so there need to samples of positive patients as well as suspected patients for genome sequencing.
