Has community transmission started in India? While the Central government has said no earlier this month, a top official from the Indian Medical Association (IMA) on Sunday said that community spread of COVID-19 had indeed begun in India and the major causes of this are migration of labourers and discontinuing of contact tracing of COVID-19 patients.
The Union Health Ministry had on July 9 said that India as a whole "has not reached the stage of community transmission". While noting that there had been "localised outbreaks" in some areas, Rajesh Bhushan, Officer on Special Duty in the Union Health ministry said during a briefing that community transmission had not yet pervaded the country.
Cases have only increased further since then, with India recently entering the list of countries with over a million cases. Dr V K Monga, IMA Board of Hospitals Chairman on Sunday said that the community transmission phase had indeed begun in the country.
"The government may not acknowledge it but look around how the people are getting infected. There are elderly who have not stepped out of home since months yet they have contracted the infection. There are women who have only gone out to buy vegetables in a week and carried home the COVID-19 infection," he noted.
Other medical professionals seem to agree. "Community transmission has been there from quite some time," Dr Arvind Kumar the Chairman of the Centre for Chest Surgery at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital told ANI.
"It was localised to pockets, for instance- in Dharavi and several areas of Delhi. I 100% agree with IMA that there is community transmission in India," he added.
(With inputs from agencies)
