'75% of +ve ICU patients in few govt hosps were Omicron-hit'

kolkata: A report prepared by the state Health department in collaboration with MR Bangur Hospital on the severity of Omicron variant reveals that around 75 per cent of the critical patients, who required ICU care in the hospital during the third wave, were Omicron positive and the remaining were infected with Delta variant.

It was the Comorbid issue in the patients and also various other complications, which led to the fatality.

State Health department, in collaboration with MR Bangur, had initiated a study by sequencing genomes of patients admitted in ICUs of various hospitals in January. The idea was to find out if they had Omicron.

The report also pointed out that multiple factors were responsible for the patients, who required admission in ICUs or CCUs care. Most of these patients were elderly ones and they were treated with various complex conditions. Most patients had Omicron.

"In the first phase of the study, data have been compiled from 70-odd patients admitted in ICUs of different state government hospitals. Around 59 samples were from MR Bangur and they were collected from elderly patients with comorbidities. Around 75 per cent of them had Omicron. The report also suggested that only aged and comorbid patients were vulnerable to Omicron," a senior health official said.

The study will be carried out in phases. The preliminary data collected during study hinted that the Omicron variant has been milder from previous delta variant. State Health department conducted a survey at the MR Bangur Hospital over a span of 30 days to ascertain whether the Covid infected patients are mostly Omicron positives or they are down with any other variant, including the Delta. According to sources, nearly 70 per cent of the total Covid infected patients in the MR Bangur Hospital required oxygen support during the third wave. Many of the infected patients are turning critical.

Most of the Omicron infected patients in the state were found to have mild symptoms while many are asymptomatic.

In the case of MR Bangur, most of the Covid beds were occupied. A large number of patients required oxygen support in the MR Bangur.

This had prompted the Health department to perform genome sequencing on elected samples from this hospital.