'Two negative tests' condition for Covid patients abolished.

Byline: Asif Chaudhry

LAHORE -- The Corona Experts Advisory Group (CEAG) has approved a new 'clinical advisory' by abolishing the condition of 'two mandatory and consecutive negative tests' for symptomatic Covid-19 patients to discharge them from hospitals in Punjab.

Under the new guidelines, the hospital shall not perform two tests of those confirmed patients who would not show symptoms for three consecutive days from the 10th day of admission to the hospitals.

Earlier, every patient visiting hospital was admitted after his first report tested positive for the virus.

Later, two tests were carried out on each Covid-19 patient - one on the 10th day of his/her admission and second after 24 hours later.

'On Thursday, we revised our guidelines for the clinical management of the Covid-19 confirmed patients and abolished their mandatory two tests', CEAG convener Prof Dr Mahmood Shaukat told Dawn.

Move aims at reducing burden by discharging patients from hospitals

However, this advisory would not be applicable to three categories of patients including Immunocompromised patients, healthcare workers involved in patient care and those living in congregations such as hostels, madressahs, prisons and community, he said.

He said the decision was taken in order to ease maximum burden on the state-run health facilities to create space for other patients of the virus.

Another purpose was to discourage the practice of unnecessary stay of patients at hospitals.

'Most importantly, the world scientists and clinicians are now doing researches on Covid-19, the clinical management and the treatment of patients at hospitals', Prof Shaukat said.

He added that the CEAG Punjab, including senior medics, issued a fresh advisory in the light of the new global researches on discontinuation of isolation and discharge of patients from hospitals.

A Covid-19 patient will be put under observation on the 10th day of his/her admission under the new advisory to take decision either he/she is eligible for further stay at the hospital for treatment or not.

'In case, the patient does not showing symptoms for three consecutive days after the 10th day, the hospital will perform his/her two mandatory tests and he/she will be discharged', he said.

Earlier, in some cases, the patient will have to stay for a month also due to some...