As per guidelines of the World Health Organization's (WHO's), oxygen is an important component to treat virus-infected patients but the unfounded faith of some panic-stricken attendants on this life-saving gas is putting the lives of COVID patients in danger.
Experts warned that excessive flow of oxygen would prove 'disastrous' for COVID patients who are in the need of this life-saving gas.
"With an impressing that superabundance oxygen supply would treat their sick patients immediately, it is observed that some attendants of COVID patients are themselves increasing flow of oxygen without the advice of medical staff. Such irrational act usually puts lives of all patients, who are on the support of oxygen, in danger," Prof Masood Tanveer, Head of the Department (HoD), Medicine, Government Medical College (GMC) Srinagar, warned.
"As per the WHO guidelines target oxygen saturation of majority of COVID patient is 90 percent. In some cases, it is rather 88 percent. Instead of providing relief to the patients, superabundance oxygen supply rather risks their lives", Dr. Tanveer said, in a video message, adding, "High flow of gas would also put oxygen plant, which is providing gas to all patients, under stress."
"There are chances that COVID patients, suffering from Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), would slip into a coma in case of getting excessive oxygen flow," he warned and appealed to attendants of all COVID patients to immediately inform authorities in case they spot any person increasing flow of the oxygen.
No black fungus case detected after November
Unlike other parts of the country, no case of black fungus is detected in all the 10 districts of Jammu province after November 2020.
Head of Ophthalmology Department at Government Medical College Jammu, Dr. Satish Gupta informed only black fungus patient was detected in the month of November 2020 and was successfully treated.
"So far we have not witnessed any case of black fungus Infection in the recent months. I request all those recovered from Coronavirus to keep cautious and continue observing COVID appropriate behavior", Dr. Gupta said.
He said that black fungus usually targets COVID recovered persons with uncontrolled diabetes or those who have administered prolonged or unsupervised dosage of steroids. "Cancer patients, those who have undergone organ transplant and people with weak immunity are more susceptible to black fungus" he added.
The doctor advised the public not to confuse conjunctivitis with the black fungus infection and said, "Conjunctivitis is a routine infection and is easily curable; while the latter has recently caught the public's attention due to COVID and needs timely intervention".
