Yoga, chyawanprash, daily walk: Health Ministry issues guidelines for COVID-19 recovered patients

New Delhi: India on Sunday breached the tally of 47 lakh COVID-19 cases and the daily cured cases exceeded 70,000, now the Centre is emphasising on the importance of post-COVID care with hospitals setting up telephonic or physical consultation.

In a press release the Union Health Ministry said that an integrated holistic approach is required for the well-being of patients who have recovered enough from COVID for care at home.

“Daily practice of Yogasana, Pranayama and Meditation, as much as health permits or as prescribed. Breathing exercises as prescribed by treating physician. Daily morning or evening walk at a comfortable pace as tolerated”, said the ministry. 

The ministry stated that India continues to report high numbers of recoveries with 78,399 registered recoveries in last 24 hours. 

The total number of recoveries has touched 37,02,595 taking the recovery rate to 77.88 per cent. Health experts have observed that post-COVID-19 infection, a full recovery can be quite a challenge. 

The recovered patients complained of general fatigue and were not able to return to an absolutely normal level of well-being even after a long time since sustaining the infection. The same was seen in the SARS virus which affected Hong Kong and other countries.

"Post-COVID care is coming up across India. Recovered patients with their negative RTPCR test result are suffering from severe to mild weakness, skin rashes, headache, diarrhoea, mild pain in the abdomen which persist for long. Some patients also notice low-grade fever," said Professor and Head of Urology and Renal Transplant Department, Safdarjung hospital Dr Anup Kumar to PTI.

In addition, Dr Kumar stated, "It has been decided that these patients after recovery should daily visit the post-COVID-care clinic and physicians will look after their complaints there. If symptoms are bothersome, an RT-PCR might be conducted again to see if the patient has actually recovered or not. Proper counselling is also crucial."

Notably, it is the heart, lungs, kidneys and brain that are affected the most by this virus any early signs and symptoms like early fatigue, breathlessness, pain in the calf muscles, cramps should be reported to the doctor immediately.