Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Monday said that 80 percent of COVID-19 cases remain asymptomatic. Addressing a press conference, ICMR chief Dr. R Gangakhedkar said, “If 100 people have been infected by a novel coronavirus, 80 of them will not exhibit any symptoms or mild symptoms of the disease.”
Even as infections continued to double every seven and a half days, the majority of COVID-19 cases in the country could be without any symptoms.
Dr. R. Gangakhedkar, a senior scientist at ICMR, New Delhi, said that “At least 80 out of every 100 COVID-19 patients may be asymptomatic or could be showing mild symptoms. It takes a few days before an infected person begins to show symptoms and the probability of being detected positive is highest when symptoms begin to show.
“It is a new disease but we are doing everything we can to combat it. As of now, we are not planning to change the testing criteria,” he(Gangakhedkar) said when asked if this needed a change in testing strategy to include those without symptoms. Contact tracing remains crucial.
As per ICMR’s testing protocols, only those people who show symptoms or are contacts of previously confirmed patients are being tested. They also include those suffering from Severe Acute Respiratory Infections(SARI).
The criteria were, however, revised for hotspots and containment zones, where all people showing influenza-like illness are being tested, but primarily screened through antibody tests. If the result is positive, the samples are again tested using RT-PCR for final confirmation. Pool sampling is being done for better surveillance in areas with a low prevalence of infections.
Maharashtra and Delhi, which have the highest number of cases, have been expressing concerns over a large number of asymptomatic cases. Maharashtra even said that at least 70% of patients in the state are without any symptoms.
Meanwhile, the total number of cases in India has gone up to 18601, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Health. The death toll from COVID-19 has risen to 590 after 47 casualties were reported in 24 hours. And at present, there are 14759 active coronavirus patients in the country. Health Ministry data showed that 3251 people who had been infected with coronavirus have recovered.
