The government of Mexico expanded the definition of a suspected case of Covid-19 which includes the loss of smell and taste, as well as diarrhea, this in order to apply diagnostic tests to people with said symptoms, the objective is to identify cases of coronavirus and provide timely care.
At a press conference, the Undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion, Hugo López-Gatell Ramírez He emphasized that a consequence of expanding the symptoms to consider a person as a probable case of covid may be the increase in infections, but affirmed that the important thing is the detection and containment of the transmission chain.
“We do not want to lose the opportunity to detect sick people, because the priority is people, this week we expanded the definition of the case and included the loss of smell, taste, diarrhea and in the new one, at least two accessory conditions are not required, If not, it is enough to have a fever, cough, sore throat, that is enough to have a suspicious case. A consequence of this action is that the number of cases can increase, nothing happens, but it is better to know, “she said.
From the National Palace, the official stressed that the care of covid patients does not depend on the diagnosis, but that everyone should be treated as if they had the respiratory disease when presenting associated symptoms.
“Let us remember that there is no specific treatment that fights the virus directly, the treatments are supportive in non-serious patients, but if the evaluation has serious symptoms such as respiratory distress, chest pain, feeling of tightness or, for example, having rapid breathing are alarm symptoms and whoever has it should go to the doctor, if he does not go to the hospital it may be that he will arrive too late, that is why we have expanded the sensitivity of the case operation ”.
With regard to the statements of Mike Ryan, director of the WHO Department of Health Emergencies, that the magnitude of the epidemic of Covid-19 in Mexico it is underestimated and one of the main reasons is the low number of diagnostic tests performed, López-Gatell Ramírez He reiterated that this is not true and that to the extent that there are fewer people with symptoms, fewer hospitalized and deaths, therefore fewer diagnostic tests are performed.
“What has been proposed is the other way around, it is believed that it was decided to lower the number of tests to lower the number of cases, it is not true, the policy is the same, if there are symptoms the test is done, as there are fewer people with symptoms, there are fewer hospitalized and fewer deaths ”.
In turn, Jean-Marc Gabastou, international adviser for Health Emergencies of the World Health Organization commented that the question is not to know if enough tests are done, but if they are being done well.
“This country through its technological jewel of Internal implemented the molecular diagnostic technique, it was the first country in the region to do so, it was not only implemented at headquarters, but it has been replicated in 150 laboratories in the country, in 32 states and 67 private laboratories, although the laboratory is essential in surveillance, isolation and early care save lives ”.
He added that according to the figures, the rate of positivity is falling, however they have reported wisely so that society does not lower its guard. “These are data that we must analyze, care measures for continuity of services must be consolidated, not only Covid, and not lower our guard, we are not talking about lowering our guard, much less reducing capacity, but increasing it and there we give reason to increase diagnostic capacity with universal access ”.
agv/rcr
– .
