We got complacent, said Dr Randeep Guleria, the chief of AIIMS.
Highlights
- Second waves of pandemics have always been more dangerous: AIIMS Director
- "As of now, we don't have a good antiviral drug for Covid," he said
- India has been reporting over 2 lakh daily cases for the last four days
The chief of India's premier medical science institute has recommended three key steps to battle the rampaging second wave of Covid-19: Creation of containment zones, banning of crowds, and boosting vaccination. All India Institute of Medical Sciences' (AIIMS) director Dr Randeep Guleria, speaking at the NDTV Solutions Summit on Sunday, said second waves of pandemics have always been more dangerous historically.
"We should have been more alert. We knew there are variants (of Covid-19) circulating in the world. It was only a matter of time until the strains are found in India...We got complacent," Dr Guleria said.
"We have to do 3-4 things: We must stop the infection from spreading. We must create a strict containment zone in the most affected areas with testing, tracking, and treatment. Secondly, we must ban crowding. Third, we must boost vaccination," he said. "Like how we earlier divided the country into red, green, orange zones, we must do that again. Get more beds and oxygen points."
The AIIMS chief's comments came a day after India reported a record 2.61 lakh new cases with 1,501 deaths.
"If we go back to the pandemic 100 years ago, the second wave was more dangerous. Even now, people started going out and now we are seeing a surge," he said.
Referring to the use of Remdisivir, a drug that is increasingly being seen to have key role in treating critical cases of Covid-19, Dr Guleria said it may reduce hospitalisation but won't help reduce mortality.
"Remdesivir is an antiviral drug and was developed for Ebola. The first paper in China showed it had no effect on Covid-19. Subsequently studies showed, it could reduce hospitalisation, but could nothing about mortality," the veteran doctor said.
"As of now, we don't have a good antiviral drug. We don't have any good treatment for Covid."