The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) restructured the containment zones in the city according to the positive, active cases in these areas on May 19.

The city had 69 containment zones till May 3 which was brought down to 65 as of May 18. Though the containment zones have been reduced, the combined area of these zones has increased from 9.91 square kilometres to 10.46 sq kms, said officials.

After the May 18 revision, 24 containment zones were removed while 20 were added. Most of the containment zones are in Bhavani peth and Dhole Patil road wards.

As per the Covid-19 dashboard report, the number of cases within the containment zones has gone down from 201 cases inside containment zones and 57 outside the containment zones as of May 17, to 104 cases inside the new containment zones to 51 outside the zones as on May 20.

New treatment strategy for Pune patients

The task force created by the civic body for Pune has recommended Tocilizumab (IL6 inhibitor) usage, which is a monoclonal antibody which has come up as an alternative medicine for Covid-19. It has suggested five-six mg per kg (400 mg max) dosage to treat Covid-19 patient and prevent them from becoming critical. The drug is prescribed once a day (2 dosage keeping interval of 24 hours) and can be used for first 25 patients and results will be analysed to decide further use in patients. In view of this, the PMC has given a work order of value of Rs 15 lakh for 50 injections and 25 patients will be treated with two injections per patient.

The civic body is also trying Hydroxychloroquine, commonly used for malaria, for those quarantined, suspected Covid-19 patients. Individual prophelexis of HCQ is given to institutional quarantined suspects. Right now there are 1,600+ suspects, out of whom 50% are with non-comorbid and have been given HCQ on top priority, remaining are given HCQ under the doctors supervision until further investigation like ECG, blood test and sugar test to determine its efficiency.

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Containment zone area spreads from 9.91 to 10.46 sq kms in Pune - Hindustan Times