As of now, India remains at stage 2 of the coronavirus outbreak involving local transmission and the government has been testing 1,000 random samples to check whether the spread has become a community transmission – which would mean that rise in cases may rise to an exponential level.
As far as the response to the World Health Organisation’s “test, test, test” advice to nations, India has maintained its stand that there is no immediate need to escalate testing in the nation.
However, WHO’s Regional Director, while giving an interview to the media has said random sampling will not be enough to detect whether COVID19 has gone beyond community transmission.
“Random sampling will not be enough to check community transmission. A comprehensive strategy to tackle will be needed. Increase testing. Severe cases of respiratory issues should also be tested,” said Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director of WHO.
“We mentioned India needing to enhance the number of testing labs in the country. There needs to be more than the current 51 accredited testing labs of COVID19 India has,” reiterates Dr Singh. WHO representative said our advice is to test more and more.
Nearly 1,000 samples from 52 testing labs (20 from each lab) have been picked up from across India to check on community transmission.
These are samples from people who have neither any travel history nor have they been in contact with anybody who has. But these people have symptoms related to respiratory issues, pneumonia and influenza-like symptoms and are admitted in government hospitals.
ICMR said the first 500 samples had tested negative and results of the rest 500 samples will be out on Wednesday.
The government’s plans will be to pick up 20 samples from each lab across the country on a weekly basis to keep checking whether community transmission has occurred or not. The government will keep changing its nationwide testing strategies based on the results, said ICMR chief Balram Bhargava.
There are 72 functioning labs across the country in the ICMR system and 49 more government labs will come in the testing fold of COVID 19 by the end of this week. Mass testing in other countries has led to a steep jump in the number of coronavirus cases.
