Symptoms In H3N2 Virus Similar To What We See In Covid: Doctor

After Corona, now the risk of a new sub-variant H3N2 is increasing as the virus is fastly spreading across the country, and its cases are also coming to the fore.

However not a single case of the virus has been reported from the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan (LNJP) hospital so far, but in the meantime the risk of corona has also started increasing.

Dr Suresh Kumar, Medical Director of Delhi's LNJP Hospital, told ANI, "There is not a single H3N2 patient in LNJP Hospital, but recently two patients of Corona have come who are admitted in the hospital and are undergoing treatment."

Dr Suresh said "H3N2 is the subvariant of the influenza A virus. Currently, we don't have any indoor patients with this virus but at the same time. The symptoms are similar to what we see in COVID like fever, cough and breathlessness."

"The H3N2 virus causes fever, cough and breathlessness in most patients, lasting for one to two weeks. On the contrary, if you see the COVID virus cases, these cases cause fever, cough and breathlessness and remain for three to five days," he added.

"COVID patients recover fast as most of the Indian population is already vaccinated by the robust vaccination program of the government of India. We don't see any COVID-related patients in the last month but because of the increasing positivity, we have only one mother and child admitted two days back and these two patients are also on the path of recovery," he said.

Dr Suresh further said, "We already have 450 beds and 20 beds for H3N2. This includes ICU beds and ventilator beds. We have all the infrastructure in place as this is the largest COVID facility in the national capital. So right now there's no need to panic."

"We have enough stock of medicine which is used for the treatment of H3N2, and we have trained our doctor's staff, nurses and all the technical staff for this virus. We have also circulated the guidelines of ICMR and the government of India that how to handle this virus if any case is reported," he added.

"This virus infects mainly those patients who are immunocompromised that includes elderly people and children because their immunity is compromised and have very high chances of infection. We have also started RT PCR tests for this H3N2 virus," Dr Suresh said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)