India Community Transmission Tag
Source : The Hindu
GS II : Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources

Why in News ?

India continues to label itself as a country with no community transmission (CT), opting instead for the lower, less serious classification called “cluster of cases” according to the latest weekly report by the World Health Organization (WHO)

Key Facts

• The list of over 190 countries suggest the majority have all labelled themselves as being in “community transmission.
  • This include Countries such as the United States, Brazil, United Kingdom, France.
• Among the 10 countries with the most number of confirmed cases only Italy and Russia do not label themselves as being in community transmission. 
• India Community Transmission Tag
  • India, since the beginning of the pandemic, has never marked itself as being in community transition.
  • India’s national positivity rate, or the proportion of tested cases returning positive, is around 21% and 533 of the 734 districts had reported positivity greater than 10%. There are 24 States with more than 15% positivity and 10 with over 25%.
• Cluster of Cases classification
  • Cases detected in the past 14 days are predominantly limited to well defined clusters that are not directly linked to imported cases.
  • It is assumed that there are a number of unidentified cases in the area.
  • This implies a low risk of infection to others in the wider community if exposure to these clusters is avoided.

Community Transmission (CT)

• CT happens when new cases in the last 14 days cannot be traced to those who have an international travel history when cases cannot be linked to a specific cluster.
• The WHO guidelines further suggest four subcategories within the broader definition of CT.
  • CT1 implies low incidence of locally acquired, widely dispersed cases and low risk of infection for the general population with the highest
  • CT4 suggesting very high incidence of locally acquired, widely dispersed cases in the past 14 days and very high risk of infection for the general population.

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