The State AYUSH Department has suggested setting up of multi-specialty Ayurvedic post-COVID-19 clinics at district-level Government Ayurveda Hospitals and Ayurveda Medical College Hospitals in the State to address multi-system and multi-organ manifestations of the infection.
This was part of an evaluation report on Punarjani, the ongoing Ayurvedic convalescent care strategy for those cured of COVID-19. The report says that reputed institutions in the sector too could be roped in for Ayurvedic specialty treatments. The project was launched in April and the evaluation report was submitted to the government on November 23.
Symptoms
Post-COVID-19 syndrome was reported among 1,451 of the 4,871 people covered under the project. Over 40 diverse symptoms were reported during the period. Half of the symptoms were persistent/reappearing/or newly appearing ones. Remaining were newly developed symptoms.
Among those who had the post-COVID-19 syndrome, 39.1% had fatigue as the major symptom, followed by cough (26.5%), shortness of breath (13.8%), headache (12.6%) and muscle ache (12.5%). Abdominal discomfort was reported among 11.9% and sore throat among 11.8%. Anxiety like psychological disturbances (6.5%) and post-traumatic stress disorder (1.2%) too were reported. Social stigmatisation was reported among 6.5% of them.
Gender, age factors
Among those under the Punarjani care, 67% were males. The report says that this confirms the acknowledged gender pattern of the virus infection. Eighty percent of the entire group belonged to the 15-64 age group. The percentage of individuals with pre-existing co-morbidities were 18.6% with diabetes accounting for 46.2%, followed by hypertension (36.7%).
A total of 2,384 or 48.9% of those individuals had been symptomatic. Fever was the most commonly found symptom (19.9%), followed by sore throat (12.8%), and cough (10.4%). Fatigue, headache, loss of smell, loss of taste, and muscle pain were the other symptoms. Shortness of breath was reported in 3.6% of people. Only 1.75% had reported any serious complication such as pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome.
The data evaluation was done by V. Rajmohan, State Coordinator, State Ayurveda COVID-19 Response Cell, Department of Ayush.
