Even as infections continue 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.
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. Gangakhedkar said that such cases are very difficult to detect. There is only one way to detect such cases and that is to find out the people who come in contact with the corona infected patients. He said that if this method is not adopted, it can be difficult. At this time, it is very important to follow the instruction of the government. On the other hand, if a person has a cough, a cold and a high fever, he is being isolated immediately as a corona-infected, but in the last few days, there are no signs of cough, fever in all the cases
Also, the country’s top medical research body is working to create an ICMR vaccine portal, as a repository for all information related to vaccine development in India. The ICMR vaccine portal would be made public by next week.
