Sunday, 18 April 2021 | PNS | Dehradun
The experts of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Rishikesh have warned that the virus of Covid-19 during the second wave of the pandemic is five times more infectious than the first wave. The director of the AIIMS Rishikesh Dr Ravikant said that the strain of the virus has undergone mutation. He added that the patients are not getting enough time for treatment as the initial symptoms are not clearly visible. The AIIMS director stated that the new virus is so deadly that it is able to infect people at a speed of about five times more than the first wave .
The Head of Department (HOD) of the CFM Department, Vartika Saxena said that the second wave is more deadly for people who were infected with the virus last year.
“We should not get afraid but take measures to prevent the infection from spreading. The person infected with the new virus can show symptoms such as fever, dry cough, headache, muscle pain, shortness of breath, chest pain, and feeling of chest pressure, difficulty in waking, diarrhoea and general feeling of weakness. People above 45 years should get Covid-19 vaccine,’’ she said.
Dr Saxena said that according to recent research done at the Imperial College, London, the new strain of Covid is 40 to 70 percent more contagious than the last time.
It is pertinent to mention here that in the last two weeks the number of Covid-19 patients admitted in the AIIMS Rishikesh have shown a sudden increase. On April 1 the hospital had 16 Covid-19 patients which have increased to 199 on April 17.
