Source ForPressRelease.com

Emphasizing the need of improving the management of viral infections in critical care, the 2nd National annual Symposium on Viral Infection in Critical Caretoday lauded a prompt action to contain deadly viruses such as Nipah.



 “The quick action to segregate the affected persons from other patients was a crucial move to stop the spread of Nipah virus in Kerala. The virus is now contained but had the Nipah-affected patients shared space with other patients for a longer duration, it would have been difficult to handle the outbreak,”says Dr. Tapesh Bansal, Head of Department, Critical Care and Sr. Consultant, Internal Medicine and organizing secretary of the conference, Paras Hospital, Guragon.



 Dr. Anoop Kumar A S, the Critical Care specialist from a private hospital, Calicut was also present at the symposium to deliver a talk on the Nipah outbreak. Dr. Kumar was the first to recognize unnatural symptoms in a patient, later identified as Nipah virus.



“I am thankful to Paras Gurgaon for inviting me and for providing me a platform to explain the new-found infection. Such sessions are important to spread awareness on new found diseases.” Said Dr. Anoop Kumar.



“The patient had symptoms of acute encephalitis but the blood pressure was rising and pulse rate swinging, instead of going down. The condition was quickly developing and we had to act fast. So when we were sure that the condition is unforeseen, we first separated him from other patients. We also sent his samples for examination so that suitable treatment can be done, and it all happened very fast. Time is crucial in such situations,”he further added.



Nipah virus is suspected to have originated from fruits bats and has claimed 17 lives in Kerala since last month. The government declared this week that the virus is now contained but health department is cautious about a possible recurrence.



“The field of infectious and viral diseases is evolving very fast. The global climate change has allowed new viruses to proliferate while those existing have developed characteristics to sustain medicines and antidotes. Both these scenarios pose a huge challenge to the health practitioners who are fighting on two fronts. This symposium was a healthy discussion on how we should prepare for this and helped clear many doubts and questions we had,” says Dr. Neeraj Bishnoi, Facility Director at Paras Hospitals Gurgaon.

 

The 2nd Annual Symposium also discussed mainly across viral conditions like enterovirus, Cytomegalovirus (CMV), the dreaded swine flu, viral Encephalitis (brain infection) apart from Dengue and Rabies.



Eminent medical practitioners in the fields of infectious disease and critical care were present at the daylong conference, including Prof. R. Guleria (All India Institute of Medical Sciences), Dr. R. K. Mani (Group CEO and Chairman Critical care , Pulmonology and Sleep Medicine, Nayati Medicity, Mathura), Dr. Subhash Todi (Director, Critical Care, AMRI Hospitals, Kolkata), Dr. Subramanian Swaminathan (Infectious Disease consultant, Global  Hospitals), Prof. P Seth (Former Head of Department, Microbiology, AIIMS), Dr. (Prof.) George M Vargese (Professor, Infectious Disease, CMC – Vellore), Dr. Prahlad Kumar Sethi (Emeritus Consultant and Former Chairman, Department of Neurology, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital) , Dr. Prasad Rao (Director, Internal Medicine, Medanta Medicity), Dr. B. K. Rao (Chairman, Critical Care, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital), Dr. Yatin Mehta (Chairman, Critical Care, Medanta), and Dr. R. Chawla (Critical Care, Apollo).