Patients with very mild, mild and moderate COVID-19 need not be tested prior to discharge, according to the Directorate of Public Health (DPH) and Preventive Medicine.
In an official communication to the directors of Medical Education, Medical and Rural Health Services and president of Indian Medical Association, Tamil Nadu, T.S. Selvavinayagam, Director of Public Health, said that as per the comprehensive guidelines for management of COVID-19 issued by the State government, there was no need for testing prior to discharge of patients.
However, the directorate received reports that despite the clear order, certain hospitals and authorities were carrying out RT-PCR tests for deciding the discharge of patients with COVID-19.
He requested the officials to issue necessary instructions to the hospitals functioning under their control and association members to strictly adhere to the comprehensive guidelines issued by the government and to restrain from taking RT-PCR tests for COVID-19 to discharge the patients.
As per the discharge policy, patients with mild/very mild/pre-symptomatic disease at COVID-19 Care Centres (CCC) can be discharged after 10 days of testing positive/date of home isolation/date of admission at CCC and no fever for three consecutive days.
For moderate cases, patients can be discharged — if asymptomatic for three consecutive days or after 10 days of testing positive. For both categories of patients, there was no need to test prior to discharge, and they would be advised to follow home isolation for a period of seven days after discharge.
The discharge policy for severe cases — clinical recovery and patient tested negative once by RT-PCR after resolution of symptoms, he added.
