Kerala govt issues revised guidelines for discharge of COVID patients; cites WHO, ICMR

The Kerala Government has issued revised COVID-19 protocols with regards to the discharge of COVID-19 patients in the state. As per the revised guidelines, asymptomatic patients will be tested on the tenth day of admission and people with first test result as negative will be discharged with home quarantine of seven days, as against the earlier guidelines which required two test results to be negative. 

If the test result comes out to be positive, then test will be conducted every alternate day until the result comes out to be negative for the patient to be discharged. The new directive refrains the discharged persons from unnecessary travel and contact with others for seven days instead of the earlier protocol of 14 days mandatory quarantine.

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The order comes in alignment with the discharge protocols issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

"Based on the recent analysis of the epidemiology of the patients in Kerala and considering the guidelines of World Health Organisation and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Government of India, the revised discharge guidelines for COVID-19 patients is issued," read the notice from the Department of Health and Family Welfare, Kerala.

As per the issued guidelines, the discharge policy is based on the following principles:

• Duration of stay in hospital
• The first test result negative
• Symptoms stated

COVID-19 situation in Kerala

On Wednesday, for the 13th consecutive day, Kerala recorded over 100 new coronavirus cases. The state has recorded 151 new COVID cases within 24 hours on Wednesday taking the count of COVID-19 infections in the state to 4,593 as on date. Out of the total infections, 2,130 are active while 132 people have recovered from the disease taking the count of recoveries to 2,439. The state has witnessed 24 deaths due to the virus as per the Union Health Ministry.

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