As People Without Travel, Contact History Test Positive, ICMR Rules Out Community Transmission

While the majority of the Covid-19 cases reported in India so far are those who had travelled abroad or those who had come in direct contact with them. But there have also been a few cases from across the country where people with no travel or apparent contact record have tested positive for the virus.

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This usually happens through what experts call community transmission. However, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has said that ¡°as of now there is no community transmission,¡± health ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said.

The official's caution underlined the concern that the highly infectious disease has the ability of rapid transmission. ICMR made these assertions based on the sampling of ICU cases suffering from severe influenza symptoms and have no travel or contact history.

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Despite the criticism over the low testing rates in the country, which is said to be the reason behind the low number of cases in India, ICMR has so far maintained that there is no community spread in the country.

It has however warned that there is a real threat of the community transmission at which point the infection becomes out of control. According to ICMR a community transmission of Covid-19 cases may take anywhere from a minimum of 20 days to a few months to be visible. In a mathematical modelling study published on Monday in the Indian Journal of Medical Research, the ICMR has highlighted that the control of epidemic would be difficult in ¡°pessimist" scenarios in metropolitan cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kochi, if people who have a travel history to infected countries or contact with the infect don¡¯t isolate themselves.

ICMR is also stepping up the number of tests and has invited quotes for the supply of 10 lakh antibody kits (serological test) for diagnosis of COVID-19. It will also procure 7 lakh RNA extraction kits, for a method which is currently used for COVID-19 testing in the country.

According to the ICMR any manufacturer with Indian based supplier can submit the quotation. It has to be FDA/CE-IVD, ICMR-NIV Pune approved antibody kit (serological test) for diagnosis of COVID-19. ¡°No other condition of the manufacturers/supplier should be entertained due to the time line in connection with current public health emergency of Covid-19,¡± it said.

So far Indian health authorities have been using test kits from Germany and ones provided by the World Health Organisation (WHO), these are RT-PCR kits (Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction). This test can identify the RNA of the SARS-CoV-2 in a human sample by introducing reverse transcriptase, an enzyme that will highlight the viral RNA.