69% of the cases found were asymptomatic: ICMR | India News

NEW DELHI: Covid-19 tests showing positive results in India so far show that 69% of positive cases were asymptomatic, while 31% are symptomatic, representing a 1: 2 ratio, said Tuesday the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR). So far, over four lakh Covid-19 samples have been tested in India and of these 18,601 were positive.
The ICMR chief of epidemiology and communicable diseases, Dr. R R Gangakhedkar, said: “There is only one study that suggests there are 80% of cases. Secondly, in the case of asymptomatic symptoms, where the symptoms are not very clear, the chances of the patient coming and reporting the case are also low. Now I say for the first time that if we look at the number of tests carried out, so far 31% belong to the symptomatic category and the rest 69% would remain asymptomatic … we can say that for each case detected there would be two cases that could qualify as asymptomatic. ”
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In trying to address concerns about asymptomatic cases, the health ministry said they include those with mild and sometimes “very mild” symptoms, and efforts are being made to identify such cases through contact tracking and community surveillance. Citing WHO observations, the joint secretary of the ministry of health, Lav Agarwal, said that there are three phases: purely asymptomatic, pre-symptomatic and symptomatic, and in common parlance, even pre-symptomatic cases are called asymptomatic when symptoms they are mild.
“We are working with a preventive approach while working on community policing. If we find an alleged asymptomatic case in a field with high risk or direct contact, then we even collect that sample for testing. In that case, when a person has mild symptoms, the test is positive. In this way we can identify and reduce mortality in time, “said Agarwal. Authorities said there is a likelihood that there are several asymptomatic people who may not know they carried the virus for a while, but so far the numbers are not considered to be so high as to pose an undetected transmission threat on a significant scale. . If that were the case, there would also be a greater number of positive cases that would require medical attention. The official also added that the testing strategy is not static and that if more attention is needed in the case of asymptomatic people, the protocols would be reviewed again.
According to the WHO, the pre-symptomatic period is the Covid-19 incubation interval, between the exposure that turns into infection and the onset of symptoms. This period is on average from five to six days, but can be up to 14 days. During this period, some infected people can be contagious. Therefore, transmission from a pre-symptomatic case can occur before the onset of symptoms. A truly asymptomatic case is a confirmed case in a person infected with Covid-19 who does not develop symptoms.