New Delhi: The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), India's apex body for the formulation, coordination and promotion of biomedical research on Tuesday expressed serious concern following reports that more than 450 persons with travel history to COVID-19 affected countries remain untraceable in Punjab and Andhra Pradesh.
"This is a matter of grave concern. India is still in stage 2 of COVID-19 pandemic, but the disappearance of so many people coming from COVID-19 affected countries, raises threat of emerging community transmission of COVID-19," said a top ICMR official to ETV Bharat.
The official said that government is trying to trace down the untraceable people, however, reports of affected patients escaping from hospitals have also appeared from Nagpur and Ludhiana.
In a similar case, authorities tracked down a Google employee's wife who fled from Bengaluru to Agra. She was also tested positive for COVID-19.
In case of community transmission, people who have not visited any affected country night also get infected.
"By sealing the international border and suspending flights from different COVID-19 affected countries, government has taken a good decision which will hopefully help in containing the virus," said (Prof) Dr Balram Bhargava, Secretary, Department of Health Research and Director General of ICMR.
He said that ICMR is closely monitoring for community transmission.
"Our labs are looking at random samples of patients who suffer from influenza, severe acute respiratory illness for presence of the COVID-19. So far, these results are negative thus implying that India has not reached the stage of community transmission," said Dr Bhargava.
Talking to ETV Bharat, Dr Nivedita Gupta from ICMR said that India has of late seen rise in the number of COVID-19 cases.
"This has happened because people kept coming from many of the COVID-19 affected countries. And the numbers have risen because in many countries community spread of the virus has already begun," said Dr Gupta.
At present, the ICMR is equipped with 72 laboratories for testing the virus. In addition to these labs, 49 more laboratories under organisations like Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) among others will be ready to test for COVID-19 by the end of this week.
Officials said that ICMR will also be setting up two testing locations (NCR and Bhubaneswar) for high throughput diagnostic systems for exponentially increasing rapid diagnosis of COVID-19. These systems can test up to 1400 samples in a day.
The ICMR is also in touch with the private labs to understand the modalities of increasing access to the test in the endeavor to prepare for future.
"We have established surveillance to find out whether we have reached stage 3...but reports suggests that we are still in stage 2 which means COVID-19 came from abroad with people and as of now, it is affecting those in close contacts of patients," said Dr Manoj, a senior scientist from ICMR.
India has recorded 137 COVID-19 positive cases as on Tuesday.
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