On Monday, the health ministry revised the standard operating procedures, nearly after a fortnight after it had issued guidelines for home isolation meant for pre-symptomatic patients or for those with mild symptoms.

A coronavirus pre-symptomatic patient or anyone with mild symptoms will be permitted to complete their home isolation without undertaking an RT-PCR confirmatory test after completing17 days from the onset of symptoms.

In the revised guidelines, a person shall be allowed to end or finish home isolation after 17 days of onset of symptoms and had no fever for atleast 10 days. In case of a pre-symptomatic coronavirus patient, the 17 days shall be calculated from the date his first throat sample was taken. Previously, a patient could end his home isolation if symptoms were clinically resolved and the district surveillance medical officer would certified the person as COVID-19 free after doing the test.

The patient would be filling an undertaking before undertaking home isolation that if his condition worsens or if any other family member develops the coronavirus symptoms, then he will immediately report to the district surveillance team or would get in touch with the call centre at 1075.

The modification in the guidelines has come after the ministry changed the discharge policy, which does not make testing compulsory for a mild patient if he does not have any fever for atleast three days. Joint secretary (health) Lav Agarwal said that the policy had been changed due to experiences taken from the other countries.

Source: ET Healthworld