Pneumonia cases choke city hosps despite retreating cold spell and rising mercury

Kolkata: Even though winter is on its way out and the mercury is crawling up, several city hospitals are still choked with a steady stream of pneumonia patients. Doctors say the spurt was triggered by temperature fluctuations, but the deluge of patients was unexpected at this time of the year. The number of pneumonia patients barely dipped through the winter across city hospitals, which is also unusual, they said. All three major forms of pneumonia — streptococcus, klebsiella and moraxella — are now prevalent, with more than half of admitted patients in ICU.Manipal Hospitals saw a 10%-15% spurt over the last week. "The mercury fluctuation led to this rise in number. This came a little early and the severity of the disease is more than usual," said Manipal interventional pulmonologist Debraj Jash.
"Allergic conditions are prevalent, making patients, especially those at the extremes of ages and with comorbidities like structural lung diseases, prone to viral infections caused by streptococcus pneumoniae, haemophilus influenzae, moraxella catarrhalis and klebsiella pneumonia. That apart, we have patients with parainfluenza virus, seasonal coronaviruses, influenza, adenovirus, human rhinovirus and human metapneumovirus," said chief microbiologist at Peerless Hospital Bhaskar Narayan Chaudhury. This has pushed occupancy to above 80%, said CEO Sudipta Mitra.CMRI Hospital's respiratory ICU has been fully occupied since Jan. Several were admitted in the ward since the ICU was consistently full. "Those with a history of COPD who contracted pneumonia have a more severe disease than those who did not have lung ailments in the past. There were a few deaths, and the mortality rate for pneumonia patients at our hospital would be around 5%-10%," said CMRI Hospital pulmonology director Raja Dhar.Charnock Hospital saw a marginal drop in pneumonia patients from around 20, which was consistent over the last two months. "While we are still getting streptococcus pneumonia patients, there was a marginal drop. Viral influenza patients with similar and very severe symptoms have now taken over," said Charnock pulmonology head Soumya Sengupta. "With temperature fluctuations on, we expect another pneumonia spurt," Sengupta said. Twenty-two patients with lung ailments, including severe pneumonia, are in critical care at Ruby General Hospital. Around 12 more are admitted in wards. "The number of pneumonia patients reached a peak between mid-Dec and mid-Jan. It dropped marginally but started crawling up again at a time when we usually see a slide in lung infections," said Ruby GM-operations Subhashish Datta.He added that several COPD and asthma patients, apart from those with pneumonia, were detected with further complications like lung tumour, structural diseases or more severe pneumonia.