As the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) disease in India continues to increase, a statement by scientists from the Indian Medical Council of Research (ICMR) has brought to light more concerns which need to be addressed. The scientists, who have been studying the outbreak, stated that community transmission of the disease is inevitable and that preventive measures need to be ramped up to combat this.
According to the scientists, there are four stages of the disease’s transmission: The first stage is when cases are introduced into a population, the second occurs when there is local transmission of the disease (between two individuals in a population), community transmission is the third stage where the disease spreads between individuals in a population in a manner whereby it becomes difficult to trace the source of the disease, and the fourth and final stage occurs when there is a widespread outbreak (epidemic) within the population, which becomes difficult to contain.
Director of the ICMR, Balram Bhargava, had earlier stated that if community transmission is prevented within the next 30-day period, there is a higher chance of curtailing uncontrolled spread of the disease as it evolves naturally.
There have already been cases of local transmission reported in India. Both in Kerala and Agra, there have been confirmed cases of the disease where several members of a family contracted the infection from an infected individual. While officials at ICMR have stated that moving to the next stage is ‘inevitable’, curbing its onset could have positive impact, including lesser active infections.
As of Saturday, India has recorded two deaths from COVID-19; a 78-year-old man in Kalaburagi in Karnataka and a 68-year-old woman in Delhi, with over 80 cases confirmed in the country. Universal screening is being done at airports in India. Over 50 lab centres have been authorised by the Centre to conduct testing of samples, across the country.
There is no cure or vaccine available against the virus and treatment is largely focused on controlling symptoms that someone has. Most of the fatal cases which have been reported globally, occurred because the individual had a number of underlying health issues that aggravated the disease.