Union health ministry releases National Comprehensive Guidelines on post-COVID management

NEW DELHI: The Union Health Ministry on Thursday released Post-COVID Sequelae Modules, National comprehensive guidelines on Post-COVID management to guide on the long-term health issues of the COVID-19 infection.

These modules will help in building the capacity of the doctors, nurses, paramedics and community health workers across India to deal with the long-term effects of COVID.

Taking to Twitter, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said, "Released National Comprehensive Guidelines on Post-COVID management to give guidance on long-term health issues. This will help health workers prepare for Post-COVID health complications in advance and give suitable treatment to patients."

"This is the first such series of 7 modules released in India, providing extensive guidelines for the medical fraternity. This includes a module for healthcare providers to deal with mental health, which is of utmost importance," he added.

Expressing happiness on the release of guidelines, Mandaviya said that these have been prepared to provide guidance to doctors and health care workers to deal with the issue of long term effects of COVID.

He said that proactive and comprehensive treatment of COVID is required to ensure minimum side effects and no negative effects of the treatment.

"We have witnessed the consequences of post-COVID effect in patients due to taking higher doses of steroids like cases of Mucormycosis. It is important to take medicines, with fewer or negligible side effects. If we are alert beforehand, it will be fruitful in tackling the future consequences of COVID," Mandaviya said.

"The perceptions related to post-COVID that are perpetuating in our society like fears, mental health issues resulting due to COVID are important to be tackled. So, it's important to understand these post-COVID issues and resolve them. Efforts have been made by resource persons across the country for the management of these post-COVID complications to prepare post COVID sequelae modules. These are very specialized modules prepared by keeping in mind various fields of Healthcare Professionals," he added.

Speaking on the occasion, Union Minister of State of Health Ministry, Dr Bharati Pravin Pawar emphasized the need to tackle mental health issues and to reach the last mile.

"This pandemic has put an unprecedented challenge on our Health and Health Care System. Mental Health Care is a big challenge for a country with such a large population. We need to build our capacity to tackle this challenge of mental health," she said.

"If the Frontline workers are equipped with proper knowledge and training, they can become a valuable resource in this fight against these post-COVID challenges. When we are trying to equip ourselves to fight against post-COVID consequences, it's also important to take these to the last mile. The training modules for mental health and other issues have been prepared based on the needs expressed by state health experts," she added while saying that we should all work together to ensure that COVID-19 becomes the last human pandemic.

Pawar tweeted, "Today I along with Hon'ble HFM @mansukhmandviya released POST COVID SEQUELAE MODULES which will be helpful in building the capacity of the doctors, nurses, paramedics and community health workers across India to recognize, diagnose and manage the several post-COVID-sequels and provide holistic treatment to COVID-19 survivors and their family members."

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is emerging as the latest post COVID symptom among infants and young children.

Recently, in the first of its instance in the country, a Delhi hospital also reported five cases of gall bladder gangrene among patients who recovered from COVID-19.

Prominent post-COVID complication observed during the second wave of the pandemic was Mucormycosis or Black Fungus. It was more common among people whose immunity has got lowered due to Covid, diabetes, kidney disease, liver or cardiac disorders, age-related issues, or those on medication for auto-immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis.