ICMR chief says India not in community transmission phase

The Centre held a press conference on Thursday to put out clarity about India’s bttle against the coronavirus. As a representative of the Centre and its various agencies, top officials from health Ministry, NITI Aayog, and the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) talked about many points of country’s present outlook against Covid-19.

In response to a question by India Today vis-a-vis community transmission of the coronavirus, the representative from the ICMR stated, "There is a heightened debate around this term - community transmission, having said that, I think even the WHO has not given a definition for it and as we have shown that India is such a large country and the prevalence is so low."

"We have found that prevalence is less than 1% in these small districts. In the urban areas, it may be slightly higher, in the containment areas, it may be slightly higher. But we are definitely, India is not in community transmission and I would like to emphasise it. India is not in community transmission and that's only a term which is used but we have to continue with the strategy of testing, tracing, tracking, and quarantine and continue with the containment measures as we have found success until now," Director General of ICMR Balram Bhargava said.

During the press conference on Thursday, the ICMR chief also stated that India is persistently making an effort to increase testing competence. "We had one lab in January and we have 850 labs now. We have ramped up testing as far as India is concerned. We have clearly very calibrated guidelines as were revised on 18th May," said Balram Bhargava.

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