10th Tele-training session held on Covid-19 treatment

SUKKUR: The Impact, a UK-based nonprofit organisation, had organised 10th Tele-training Session on Covid-19 with a large scale institutional participation across the country.

The session discussed the interpretation of medical data having its impact on clinical management of Covid-19 how to critically evaluate emerging evidence of the pandemic. The session was facilitated by the Sindh government as the health department and DG health services assured participation of the secondary care units, including talukas and districts. From primary care, the CEO PPHI Sindh Abdul Wahab Soomro took the lead and participated along with his team from all the 29 districts.

The institutional participations were witnessed from Sindh, Punjab, Islamabad, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The session was moderated by Dr Najeeb Ahmed, a consultant in Hull University Hospitals, UK. The first speaker, Dr Khurrum Khan from London, provided an insight into the interpretation of a rapidly evolving scenario of statistical and biological perspectives and its impact on evidence based medicine within the context of Covid-19 e.g. case series, cohort studies, clinical trials, etc.

Dr Khurrum also highlighted the need for closer collaboration with the hospitals within Pakistan in order to set up their own studies to optimise the patient management. He mentioned that the steroids such as dexamethasone, have only demonstrated efficacy in severe disease and community usage of the drug without supervision can paradoxically lead to impaired immunity and possibly higher risk of contracting the virus.

The second part of the session was led by consultant epidemiologist Prof Rashid Chotani from Nebraska Medical University, Washington DC, who gave a thought-provoking lecture on the possibilities of reproductivity of the virus, drew the guidelines around testing and retesting, cost effectiveness, swabs handling and realistic target approach to testing and treatment. He mentioned about the PCR and various antibody testing i.e. when test is required for hospitalized or symptomatic patients emphasising not to retest as this can stay positive for a long time which doesn’t mean that the patient has been re-infected.