Published on April 6, 2021
AHMEDABAD: Gujarat reeled under relentless third surge of coronavirus as the state breached the 3,000 Covid-19 cases in a day for the first time on Monday. Total 3,160 cases were reported which calculated to roughly two Covid-19 cases detected every minute in the state. Fifteen people succumbed to the infection.
In such a scenario, authorities of the Civil Hospital, Ahmedabad, the biggest Covid-designated hospital in the state, revealed that a total of 899 patients were hospitalized with corona complications in the past nine days. Of these, 95% of patients eligible for the Covid-19 protective jab had not got vaccinated.
Dr J P Modi, medical superintendent of Civil Hospital, said that of the 899 hospitalized patients, only 93 had taken the first shot of Covid-19 vaccine and 21 out of these had got both the shots. “Even when one rules out the patients who are below 60 years of age – as the vaccination for those above 45 years started recently – the ratio of vaccinated patients is not more than 5%,” Dr Modi said.
“If we interpret the data, we can surely argue that those who have taken even one shot of vaccine had a lesser hospitalization rate,” he said, adding that vaccination must be taken by all eligible to reduce chances of infection.
As Covid-19 surges across the state and country, local experts advocate vaccination as a protective shield against complications of the viral infection
‘Vaccination reduces severity’
Dr Amit Prajapati, critical care specialist at Shalby Hospital, said that the vaccination is no guarantee of non-infection. “But data suggests that only a few show severe symptoms. Vaccinated patients who contracted Covd-19 in the past week reported mostly mild to moderate symptoms,” Dr Prajapati said.
In Vadodara, doctors said there were only a few cases of vaccinated persons ending up in hospitals with Covid-19 while the majority admitted with complications did not get the jab.
Dr Bharat Gadhvi, president of Ahmedabad Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association, said that they have not formalized the data collection on vaccination of the Covid-19 patients getting admitted in the hospital. “Data from member hospitals will be collated soon,” he said.
(With inputs by Sachin Sharma from Vadodara)
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