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ICMR says 69% patients didn’t show Covid-19 symptoms
Roughly two-thirds of all Covid-19 cases in 10 major states comprise people who did not show any symptoms at the time of testing, according to a recent HT analysis of state government data that reinforced growing evidence that “silent spreaders” were unknowingly infecting others, and underlined the need for extensive testing to isolate such patients.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said on Tuesday that 69% of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patients in India who were tested did not show symptoms of the infection, even as the Union health ministry said that the trend of cases worldwide showed about 80% of the patients had mild or very mild symptoms.
Roughly two-thirds of all Covid-19 cases in 10 major states comprise people who did not show any symptoms at the time of testing, according to a recent HT analysis of state government data that reinforced growing evidence that “silent spreaders” were unknowingly infecting others, and underlined the need for extensive testing to isolate such patients.
Responding to a query on a study that suggested about 80% of the Covid-19 patients were either asymptomatic or had mild symptoms, ICMR’s head of epidemiology and communicable diseases Raman Gangakhedkar said that it was just one analysis that presented these numbers.
“Among the total coronavirus tests conducted so far in India, 69% were asymptomatic and 31% were symptomatic. Which means for one positive patient when we initiated contact tracing, on average we found two asymptomatic patients,” Gangakhedkar said at the daily news briefing.
He also said that usually, when there are asymptomatic cases, the chances of a patient reporting them are low.
An analysis by HT on Sunday found that 65% of Maharashtra’s cases and 75% of Uttar Pradesh’s cases did not show symptoms at the time of testing. In Assam, 82% of the cases were of people with no symptoms.
At the briefing on Tuesday, Union health ministry joint secretary Lav Agarwal, while referring to a World Health Organization (WHO) report, said: “There are few reports of lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases which are truly asymptomatic. There has been no documented asymptomatic transmission. This does not exclude the possibility that it may occur.”
“Using community surveillance and contact tracing, we are taking pre-emptive action to test asymptomatic persons with high risk contacts so that we are able to identify infected patients in early stage, treat them and reduce mortality,” he said.
“On the basis of worldwide analysis, 80% of the Covid-19 patients show mild symptoms to very mild symptoms. Around 15% patients turn into severe cases and 5% may become critical,” Agarwal added.
Experts say that the expansion of testing from only symptomatic contacts of a confirmed Covid-19 patient to testing everyone who could have been exposed to the infection, irrespective of symptoms, is leading to more asymptomatic cases being detected n India.
The death toll due to Covid-19 rose to 644 and the number of cases climbed to 20,004 in the country on Monday, according data from states.
