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NEW DELHI: In a relief to authorities monitoring Covid-19, all the 820 randomly collected samples of persons suffering from severely acute respiratory infection have tested negative, providing scientific evidence that community transmission of the disease is yet to manifest itself.
The process of collecting samples from persons who are not in the “zone of risk” of those who have travelled abroad or have been in touch with such individuals will continue. The possibility of a community spread — when the virus is detected in a patient who has neither been abroad nor has been in contact with such a person — remains, leaving no room for complacency.
“All the 820 randomly collected samples have tested negative and do not indicate any community transmission. However, we will ramp up our sample numbers and continue to do surveillance to check if there is any further spread,” a senior official and scientist at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) told TOI.
The results are crucial because they are part of a scientific assessment to evaluate whether the virus has spread through community transmission. “We are not exactly ruling out community transmission but the fact that these samples have tested negative