Coronavirus in India: Limited community transmission of Covid-19 has begun, says Health Ministry

Limited community transmission of the coronavirus has started in India, a Union health ministry document has stated, acknowledging for the first time the country is going into that stage of the outbreak when the source of a patient’s infection cannot be traced and quarantined.

India has reported 1,190 cases and 29 deaths because of the coronavirus, which causes the life-threatening contamination, till Monday.

A document detailing the standard operation procedure, put out by the health ministry on Sunday, stated, “This SOP is applicable to current phase of Covid-19 pandemic in India (local transmission and limited community transmission), wherein as per plan of action, all suspect cases are admitted to isolation facilities.”

There are four key stages of Sars-Cov-2 virus. Stage one is usually when cases are imported and are not of local origin. Stage two is when there is local transmission, which means section of people testing positive have come in contact with a positive patient having a travel history. Stage three is community transmission and stage four is an endemic, when there are several bunches of the contamination.

The Indian Council of Medical Research, assigned a task to contain the epedemic, has publicly mentioned that India is still in Stage two, regardless of number of cases of people with no known exposure to an infected person or travel history mounting over the past week.

Community transmission takes place when the source of infection is untraced and the patient has no history of travel or know contact with a confirmed coronavirus case. It suggests that undiagnosed cases are infecting others, which is when infection clusters soar out of control and develop into epidemics.

“We’ve had pockets of community transmission in several locations in half a dozen states, but now the number of people with untraceable infection is increasing, which is a sign that community transmission has begun. It is irreversible now,” said senior health expert, requesting anonymity.

Raman Gangakhedkar, chief of epidemiology and communicable diseases, ICMR, stated, “I cannot comment on this right now, this issue will be addressed in the ministry briefing.”

As claimed by T Jacob John, head of the department of clinical virology and microbiology at Christian Medical College Vellore, community transmission in the country started mid-February.

“Instead of splitting hair, the focus should be on preparing to be three steps ahead of the virus. It’s not a cops and robbers game, we should not be fooled into reacting to the virus but should be fooling the virus by anticipating the curve and proactively deciding what we need to do stop the spread,” said John, Emeritus Medical Scientist, ICMR.

The United States Centers for Disease Control (USCDC) announced its first case of a person in California with not history of travel or exposure to other patient as “possible instance of community spread of Covid-19 in the United States” on 26th February.

“At this time, the patient’s exposure is unknown. It’s possible this could be an instance of community spread of COVID-19, which would be the first time this has happened in the United States. Community spread means spread of an illness for which the source of infection is unknown, ” said the USCDC in a statement.

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