Severe immune effect seen in Delta absent in Omicron cases in Mumbai: City hospital data – ET HealthWorld

Doctors at the hospital said not a single patient needed oxygen or any non-invasive ventilator support. Dr Rajas Walinjkar, consultant and unit in-charge at SevenHills DCH, who has handled Omicron cases with his team, said that no clinically significant rise in inflammatory markers like CRP was seen in a single case. “We didn’t see a single case of cytokine storm. Such patients tend to become severe and go on to need oxygen and other intensive treatments as we experienced during the Delta wave,” he said.

Globally, there has been evidence that Omicron largely affects the upper respiratory tract and doesn’t attack the lungs outrightly. SevenHills’ patients too largely saw clear lungs in Omicron patients, the doctor said, adding that the highest HRCT scan score they have seen was 5 or 6 out of 25. “It was also mainly found in those who either delayed coming to us by a few days or had some underlying co-morbid conditions,” Dr Walinjkar said, adding that in most the lung lesions resolved shortly and without heavy intervention.

Can clinicians tell if a patient has Delta or Omicron variant by looking at symptoms? “No, it’s unlikely. The disease usually starts with sore throat or fever, then progresses to body ache. The fever spikes usually manifest for 2-3 days before it starts to subside,” he said. However, early symptoms resolution is probably one of the indicators that the person was probably affected by Omicron.

Of 125 confirmed cases in hospital, 119 were discharged and six transferred to private hospitals. He said cases are no more segregated as Omicron or Delta and treated symptomatically. “The biggest red flag for treatment escalation has to be persistent high-grade fever that doesn’t subside after 3-4 days and needs to be evaluated,” he said.

However, most of these patients were either fully or partially vaccinated. Data shows 74% were vaccinated with both doses, including eight patients who’d taken booster shots, 13% were partially vaccinated and nearly 12% unvaccinated. Vaccination status of six patients was unknown. The doctor said since none of their conditions was severe, it wasn’t possible to compare behaviour of disease in the vaccinated and unvaccinated.