Jahnavi Sarma
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Written By: Jahnavi Sarma | Published : July 18, 2020 9:01 PM IST
Speed of contact tracing strategies is essential to slow coronavirus transmission.
The Indian government has long maintained that there is no community spread of COVID-19 in the country despite the alarming surge in cases. Now as cases surge past the 10 lakh mark in India, in a significant move, the Indian Medical Association says that community spread of the virus is on and the situation is really bad in the country.
Dr V K Monga, the Chairman of IMA Hospital Board of India said in an interview with ANI, "This is now an exponential growth. Every day the number of cases is increasing by more than around 30,000. This is really a bad situation for the country. There are so many factors connected with it. But overall, this is now spreading to rural areas. This is a bad sign. It now shows a community spread." This comes just a day after the Chief Minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan, confirmed community spread occurring in two coastal villages in the capital city, Thiruvananthapuram.
Dr Monga went on to say that confirmed COVID-19 cases are penetrating down into towns and villages where it will be very difficult to control the situation. "In Delhi, we were able to contain it. But what about interior parts of the country in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Goa, Madhya Pradesh (which may be the new hotspots)?" he questions. "All these issues are very important, and the state governments should take full care and seek help of the Central government to control the situation," he added.
"This is a viral disease that spreads very fast. To contain the disease there are only two options. Firstly, 70 per cent population contracts the disease and gets immune, and other is getting an immunisation," stated Monga. Vaccination is essential to spread the spread of this disease. Dr Monga said that India's two indigenous vaccine makers will be starting human trials soon. According to him, there has to be phases of trials then human trial, then efficacy and side effects. Another important thing, according to him, is to see how long this immunity will last because most of the patients are unable to go beyond three months of immunity.
According to the latest health ministry update, the total confirmed cases in India have reached 1,038,716. Of these, 358,629 are active cases and 653,751 cured/discharged/migrated cases. A total of 26,273 deaths have been registered to date. According to the ICMR, as many as 13,433,742 samples have been tested for COVID-19 till July 17. Of these 361,024 samples were tested on Friday. ICMR is ramping up testing facilities regularly. At present, 885 government laboratories and 368 private laboratory chains are conducting COVID-19 tests across the country.
Community spread is the transmission of a contagious disease within a specific community. When a contagious disease spreads to individuals in a particular geographic location who have no known contact with other infected individuals or who have not recently traveled to an area where the disease has any documented cases, then it is a case of community spread.
(With inputs from ANI)
