Community spread has begun, says Indian Medical Association

New Delhi: With one million people getting affected by Covid-19, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) is of the view that community spread has started, and the situation is pretty bad.

IMA Hospital Board Chairman Dr V K Monga said, "This is now an exponential growth. Every day the number of cases is increasing by more than around 30,000. This is really a bad situation for the country. There are so many factors connected with it but this is now spreading to rural areas. This is a bad sign. It now shows a community spread."

According to the latest update by the Union Health Ministry, the total confirmed cases reached around 10.5 lakhs. There are 3,58,629 active cases and 6,53,751 cured/discharged/migrated. A total of 26,273 deaths have been registered to date.

Dr Monga said, "Cases are penetrating down into towns and villages where it will be very difficult to control the situation.

In Delhi, we were able to contain it, but what about interior parts of the country in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Goa, Madhya Pradesh (which may be the new hotspots)?"

All these issues are very important and the governments should take full care and seek help of the Central government to control the situation," Monga said.

"This is a viral disease that spreads very fast. To contain the disease there are only two options. Firstly, 70 per cent population contracts the disease and gets immune, and other is getting an immunisation," stated Monga.

There has to be phases of trials then human trial, then efficacy and side effects. Also, importantly it has to be seen how long this immunity will last because most of the patients are unable to go beyond three months of immunity," said Dr Monga.

It may be mentioned here that Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan had on Friday confirmed community spread occurring in two coastal villages in the capital city, Thiruvananthapuram. The villages, Pulluvila and Poonthura, have been acting like clusters of super spread for the last few days.