A senior scientist at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the nodal body framing the country’s policy for coronavirus testing, has said India has delayed community transmission of the virus and the 21-day nationwide lockdown is likely to help us in a major way.
Dr Raman Gangakhedkar, however, said that if lockdown rules are not followed diligently, there could be trouble.
In an exclusive interview to CNN-News18, Dr Gangakhedkar further said a combination of HIV drug is not effective to treat coronavirus patients with severe illness.
Edited excerpts:
Has India managed to delay community transmission? According to ICMR, the calculation is that community transmission is inevitable?
Until the time, we can avoid it, it is good. We would love to believe it is inevitable and continue to take stronger steps. We still don’t have evidence of community-based transmission. It is a possibility if we don’t adhere to the rules of the lockdown. If we don’t follow lockdown procedures, we will invite trouble.
Has India delayed community transmission if you simply look at the pattern of the virus?
Absolutely, we have delayed it. If you see other countries that started late and you can visualise the scene being described there. India is comfortably placed because of the strong action it has taken on multiple fronts. If we continue to adhering to this, we will continue to see similar trend.
A lot of questions continue to be raised on how much we are testing. 18.11 people per a million. That is little? You say you are sticking to the protocol, but why would South Korea then test so much?
You shouldn’t compare us to South Korea. In that country, the infection occurred because there was a cult. It was massive infection in a church. There was an imported case also which infected many. It was a cluster transmission. Since it was a large number of people, they cordoned off the area and started testing them.
The number of tests was only two lakh. Compare that to India -- we are offering the same test to everyone. Are we missing people? Perhaps not. In spite of changes in test criteria -- that people with respiratory illness should be tested and screened -- we have added another two categories. We have expanded our testing mandate.
Even private labs are testing. Despite that, our number is 2,000 per day. I don’t understand why people say we are under-testing. If we are under-testing, what is their expectation?
You believe that there will be a lot of benefits of the lockdown? And extending it is something you are not ruling out?
I think lockdown will benefit. How much will be the benefit depends on how we behave during the period. If we follow the rules in the interest of ourselves and families, I am sure there will be huge benefits of the lockdown.
If it brings things under control in the sense that day-wise increase is not much?
I think it is not worth speculating. I am not in a position to say that now.
What about the use of anti-HIV drug and its benefits? How many patients have used it?
The number of patients using it is far too few. This was used in Jaipur in patients who were using other drugs too. We can’t say for sure whether those who were discharged had benefited by that drug. Whether this drug should be used also is settled as there is a study in China where the drug was used among 199 patients. This drug doesn’t work when used in patients who have severe illnesses. I think for the time being we need to wait.
Serological tests will reduce time of testing to how many minutes?
That could come down to 45-20 minutes. However, this test is not for detection of infection. It is detection of an anti-body. This will be used more for surveillance purposes. This will show if the patient was infected and is infected currently.
What about the age profile of the people who have succumbed?
It is more than the people who have survived
Meaning people above the age of 60?
There could be some who have some other chronic morbidity and succumbed.
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