J&K recorded two more deaths attributed to COVID19 today, taking the toll of the viral illness here to 26. The deceased includes a 55-year old Srinagar man.
The Srinagar man was admitted at SMHS Hospital and was subsequently operated upon for “explorative laprotomy with appendectomy”. Post his surgery, the patient was admitted to the Surgical ICU of SMHS Hospital and was on ventilator. Dr Nazir Chaudhary, medical superintendent SMHS Hospital said the patient was tested for COVID19 while he was admitted in the ICU. “He tested positive for COVID19,” he said.
Dr S Saleem Khan, nodal officer for COVID19 at GMC Srinagar said the patient improved and was
taken off the ventilator and subsequently shifted to CD Hospital on 18 May. “He was improving and maintaining good oxygen saturation without any oxygen support,” Dr Khan said.
The patient developed sudden cardiac arrest on Wednesday at 4 pm, Dr Khan said, and was immediately resuscitated and put on a ventilator. However, soon after, he developed another cardiac arrest. “He could not be revived then,” Dr Khan said.
The patient was on prophylactic anticoagulants, Dr Naveed Nazir Shah, head department of pulmonology at CD Hospital said. He said the sudden death of COVID19 patients is “puzzling” and has been recorded world over. “May be it is embolism but a lot is being researched about COVID19 and is yet to reach to a logical conclusion,” he said. Dr Shah said some COVID19 patients have been seen to deteriorate suddenly across hospitals. “Some of our patients have died like this,” he said.
Dr Parvaiz A Koul, head department of internal and pulmonary medicine at SKIMS and an influenza expert, said in context of COVID19, cardiac event like this can be attributed to “myocarditis induced arrythymia or a generalized clotting disorder induced pulmonary embolism”. He said upto 12 percent of COVI19 cases are reported to have a cardiac injury. “It can lead to rapid respiratory failure much like high altitude pulmonary edema as opposed to usual acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS),” he said.
Another COVID19 death took place in GMC Anantnag, the deceased a 75-year old man from Sarnal village in Anantnag who died on Tuesday evening. His sample was reported to be positive today. Dr Showkat Jeelani, principal GMC Baramulla said the patient reported to hospital on Monday with pneumonia and was sampled for COVID19. “He was very sick and we put him on treatment but unfortunately, he did not make it,” Dr Jeelani said. He added that the deceased was suffering from hypertensive heart disease. “We had not released his body pending test report. All precautions were taken and district administration was informed accordingly,” he said.
The two deaths take the toll of COVID19 fatality in J&K to 26.