'India In Stage 2 Of Coronavirus Outbreak, No Proof Of Community Transmission': ICMR Chief

India has a 30-day window to halt the beginning of community transmission, Director General of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Balram Bhargava said on March 17, while stating that India is currently in stage two (local transmission) of the coronavirus outbreak.

"We already know that we are in stage 2. We are not in stage 3, clearly as of now. There are four stages. The third stage is community transmission which we hope we shouldn't have. It would depend on how strongly we close our international borders, in terms of which the government has taken very proactive steps. But can't say that community transmission won't happen," Hindustan Times quoted Bhargava as saying while addressing a press conference in New Delhi.

Stage two during the spread of a virus occurs when there is a local transmission from imported cases (stage 1) to one or more close contacts.

Covid-19 has reached stage three in Iran, Korea, US and many parts of Europe, where rampant community transmission is observed leading to an epidemic. The phenomenon was observed in China.

"All asymptomatic patients who have taken international flights in the past 14 days should get tested if they develop symptoms," said Bhargava.

As of March 17, the virus has spread to more than 150 countries and 13 states in India. Reportedly, every time a person considered at-risk, travels and their contacts evade screening, refuse to stay home quarantined for two weeks, or run out of isolation wards across the country, India gets closer to the community transmission stage.

Community transmission is said to occur when Covid-19 is diagnosed in someone who has not travelled to a country with an ongoing outbreak and has not been near a confirmed case or their close contacts.

"We are in the process of engaging private NABL accredited laboratories for carrying out testing of Covid-19 cases. We have 72 functional ICMR laboratories in govt sector for testing; 49 more will be active by month-end," Bhargava added.

"We have already placed orders for 1 million probes, reagents and primers are unlimited. We have also requested WHO to provide 1 million probes. We are also operationalizing through two high-throughput systems, which are the rapid testing laboratories. They will be operationalised in two locations and they can test up to 1,400 samples per day in those labs. We're operationalizing them by the end of this week," he said while speaking on preparedness.

He appealed to all the private laboratories to offer Covid-19 diagnosis free of cost.

Laboratories operated by other government departments and hospitals will soon be equipped and mandated to carry out testing for the novel coronavirus. The ICMR chief also said that the organisation was looking at bringing private laboratories to test for Covid-19, which is the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Labs accredited by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) could be allowed to conduct tests for novel coronavirus, Bhargava suggested.

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