Doha: Health officials at the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) and Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) have said that the UK COVID-19 variant has been a significant factor in the recent rise in people admitted to intensive care units. In a post on social media, Director of Public Health at MOPH, Dr. Mohammed Al Thani explained that despite the increased health risks presented by the UK variant, people can still take proactive steps to protect themselves and greatly reduce their chances of getting infected and becoming sick.
“Since the middle of March, the number of people receiving life-saving medical treatment in our intensive care units, has more than doubled and we now have over 280 people with COVID-19 in intensive care,” said Dr. Ahmed Mohammed, Acting Chairman of HMC’s Intensive Care Units.
He added: “To put this into perspective, at the peak of the first wave in May 2020, we had around 220 patients in intensive care. It is clear that people are becoming sicker and experiencing more severe symptoms in this second wave of the virus.”
In a separate post on Twitter, MoPH has clarified several facts about the UK variant of the COVID-19 virus and said that vaccines being used in Qatar have been shown to be effective at preventing severe symptoms due to the UK variant. Qatar, like more than 70 countries around the world and in the region, is now seeing many cases of the new variant from the UK.
“This new UK variant does not cause different symptoms in infected people, but it is much more highly transmissible and can therefore increase the rate of spread of the virus though the community,” said the Ministry on its twitter account.
“Due to this highly transmissible element, the UK variant has contributed to the recent significant increase in cases in Qatar,” it added. According to the Ministry, clinical evidence appears to now show that the UK variant can cause more severe illness, meaning that people infected with the UK variant are more likely to get very sick, require hospitalization and, sadly, have more chance of dying due to serious complications from the virus.
“The two COVID-19 vaccines being used in Qatar – Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna — have both been shown to be effective at preventing severe symptoms due to the UK variant,” said the Ministry. The Ministry has also reminded public that they should follow all COVID-19 precautionary measures.
“The most effective way to protect you and control the spread of the virus is to take the COVID-19 vaccine and adhere to all the COVID-19 precautionary and protective measures,” it said. The Ministry in its daily COVID-19 report said that Qatar’s strict quarantine policy for returning travellers enabled to delay the introduction of new variants into this country for several months.
“But we are now seeing positive COVID-19 cases in the region and in Qatar with the new variants from the UK,” the Ministry said.
“The new variant is much more contagious and spread more easily between people than the existing strain and may be associated with increased severity of disease,” the Ministry added. It also said that until all eligible members of country's population have been vaccinated, people must continue to follow the preventive measures.
