Audit panel in Bengal to deal with only 'peculiar' COVID-19
Kolkata, May 3 () The audit committee constitutedby the West Bengal government to ascertain if a death was dueto COVID-19 or a pre-existing ailment will henceforthstudy only select coronavirus cases and submit its report tothe government, a senior member of the panel said on Sunday.
The committee, after having given its set ofrecommendations for certifying COVID-19-related death cases,will deal with "peculiar" coronavirus cases, he said.
The panel had recently examined 105 deaths in thestate, following which it attributed 33 cases to the diseaseand the rest to co-morbidities.
"The experts committee for conducting an audit intothe deaths of COVID-19 will now on look into peculiar casesand not into all deaths. We have not been given any freshsample for examination after we filed our report on those 105deaths," the committee member told .
According to the panelist, the principle objective ofthe committee is to study the death of COVID-19 patients andfind out more about the character of the virus.
"There are several questions in the mind of the commonpeople about the disease. As there is no study or database inthis regard, the government wanted set up a treatment andcontainment protocol to understand the symptoms... and howthat kept changing from the preliminary to aggravated stage.
"And in case of deaths, how many days did the virustake to reach that stage when the infected person finallysuccumbs," he explained.
The panel, he said, has formed a list of dos anddon'ts for medical practitioners treating novel coronaviruscases and certifying deaths.
"We analysed, researched and formed a list ofrecommendations for the doctors to treat and certify deathsbecause of COVID-19," the member said.
The committee will now on collect samples fromhospitals for examination, and will give necessary suggestionsto the health department, if there are new findings.
"This panel will not certify any coronavirus-relateddeath. We will now go for random collection of samples fromhospitals. In case of any new or peculiar finding, we willinform the state health department and make ourrecommendations," he said.
The panel had earlier noted that there was scope forimprovement in medical record-keeping at COVID-19 hospitals,following which Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha said the healthdepartment would soon issue an advisory.
"During our research we found that the deathcertificates were issued without following the norms set bythe WHO and the ICMR for COVID-19 deaths. Those certificatesshould have included the immediate cause of death, antecedentcause of death and underlying cause of death. The medicalrecord-keeping requires uniformity and that's theresponsibility of hospital authorities," the panelist said.
An advisory, once issued by the government, willdefinitely help hospitals in understanding the character ofthe disease and how to deal with it, he said.
West Bengal has registered 48 deaths due to Covid-19.