Corona infection rate is low; no community transmission yet : Health Ministry

The Union Health Ministry on Friday said the infection rate from coronavirus is not huge according to the samples collected and there is no community transmission in the country so far.

Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary Health Ministry, said there is no community transmission of the coronavirus viral infection, thus people should not panic.

He said the infection rate from coronavirus is not huge, for example out of 16,000 tests in a day, only 0.2 per cent cases have tested positive. As many as 146 government labs are testing samples for COVID-19 and 67 private labs have been given approval to conduct the test, said the health ministry.

The ministry official said in January this year, they began with just one lab then scaled it up to 15 labs. “We have done upscaling to 2.5 labs in a day so far”, said Agarwal.

He said though there is no community transmission in the country till now, but people have to be alert and follow dos and don’ts.

On the availability of the Hydroxychloroquine, Agarwal said there is a stock of more than 3 crore tablets in the country, and the required projection of consumption is nearly 1 crore tablets.

“The stock is sufficient for the month-end requirement”, said Agarwal citing the MEA decision to export surplus medicine.

The total number of confirmed cases in India is 6,412, 503 have been cured/ discharged. The country has recorded 199 deaths. There are 5,709 active cases in the country.