India is not in community transmission stage: ICMR

New Delhi: While India’s total tally of covid-19 cases on Thursday reached 295,898 with 10,407 new cases, government maintained that the country is still not witnessing community transmission of the virus.

India also recorded the highest single deaths on Thursday with 379 persons succumbing to the coronavirus.

“India is not in community transmission; we have to continue with our strategy of testing, tracing, tracking, quarantine and containment measures; we should not give up our guard on these,” said Dr Balram Bhargava, Director General, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

“India's mortality per lakh population is amongst the lowest in the world. India's cases per lakh population amongst the lowest in the world,” he said.

Maharashtra continues to be the worst virus hit state in the country with total number of cases swollen to 97,648 with 3.607 fresh cases recorded on Thursday with all the 36 Districts affected in the State.

Concerned over the State’s situation, Harsh Vardhan, Union Health Minister held a high level meeting on Thursday via Video Conferencing with Rajesh Tope, Health Minister of Maharashtra.

The health minister reviewed the status of covid-19 and its management with districts of Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nashik, Palghar, Nagpur and Aurangabad.

“Increase in number of Containment Zones needs immediate attention. Vulnerability mapping of densely populated areas should be done for effective containment strategy to be put in place. Also, rise in Case Fatality rate should be looked into along with tests done per million population,” Harsh Vardhan said.

Regarding the health infrastructure, the health minister said that the state should strengthen the system of ICU, ventilators and testing labs and ensure the availability of ICU and ventilators to all forthcoming patients.

“The testing labs should ensure prompt delivery of reports of covid-19 tests to help in timely detection and management of covid-19 patients,” said Harsh Vardhan.

The health minister highlighted the need for strengthening human resource for contact tracing; logistics enhancement like including ICU beds with ventilators, beds with facility available for oxygen supplementation etc; ensuring transport for healthcare workers; and strengthening Behaviour Change Communication (BCC) activities to reduce community resistance and counselling of high risk contacts. In addition, it was important for districts to ensure strict implementation of containment plan along with epidemiological investigation of cases for complete contact tracing and strict quarantine for the inflowing persons from the major affected areas.

All across the country, there have been reports of patients not getting adequate help in terms of the guidance, beds and diagnostic services.

“Symptomatic person or a suspect case should get in touch with states' helpline numbers and try to access the hospital facilities as advised; In addition to this, we have requested the States to streamline the helpline system and provide guidance,” said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary, Union Health Ministry during the a press conference.