High-risk kin of Maharashtra patients, all ground staff to get HCQS

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra government is putting all its Covid-19 frontline workers and high-risk contacts of patients on the anti-malarial tablet hydroxychloroquine sulphate, albeit with their consent and with riders — to be given voluntarily after sharing necessary information. Already doctors and healthcare workers are on the medicine..

The move is in consonance with BMC’s action of distributing 1.3 lakh HCQS tablets among wards officers to ensure each suspected patient is given a five-day, 12-tablet course.

However, four days ago, the US FDA had cautioned against its use outside hospitals due to the risk of serious side-effects, including life-threatening heart rhythm problems.

The government circular said all ground-level workers, including those engaged in surveillance activities in containment zones, screening of people, working in the hospitals and managing Covid care facilities will be included. The tablets should be given voluntarily and after all necessary information has been shared. People with underlying health complications like heart diseases, hypertension and diabetes should be given the medication only with advice from doctors. Those with retinopathy and hypersensitivity should not be given the dose, the circular made it clear.

Frontline workers will be put on a seven-week course, while the contacts of positive patients will be on a three-week course. “If there is any side effect, immediate advice of doctors should be sought,” said the circular. It also made it clear that once the tablets have started, there cannot be any changing of the quarantine period or the place. For instance, those in institutional quarantine cannot go home. Also, all precautions like masks and PPEs for medical staff should continue.

The BMC has already started distribution in some areas like Dharavi, and specified that to receive the tablet course, the suspected Covid patients must be admitted to its Covid Care Centres (CCC).

“People admitted in both types of CCCs (CCC-1 for high risk & CCC-2 for asymptomatic) will be given the tablet, preferably under medical advice,” said a ward officer. Each patient will also get 35 zinc supplements to be taken over five days.

Additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani said ward officers would have to carefully select candidates. “It cannot be given to children under 15, pregnant women or people with a heart condition,” he said.

A ward-level official said following the municipal commissioner’s orders earlier this month, they hired teams of doctors on eight-hour shifts as well as nurses and ward boys at the institutional quarantine centres. “The staff was hired after due verification of their educational qualifications. We expect them to monitor people continually once the medication is administered,” he said. However, CCC-1s don’t have full-time doctors. “Hence, medication is given to smaller groups,” he added.

Samajwadi Party MLA Rais Shaikh was initially against administering of HCQS because it seemed like only poor pockets such as Dharavi were being targeted. “If all Covid suspects are getting the HCQS course and that too under a doctor’s supervision, it seems fair,’’ he added.