No community transmission, 170 COVID-19 hotspots in country: Govt

Updated: Apr 15, 2020, 11:46 PM ISTThe Ministry of Health and Family Welfare stated on Wednesday that there is no community transmission of India so far, and declared 170 districts as COVID-19 hotspots. "No community transmission in India so far, there have been some local outbreaks," the health ministry informed. Moreover, ICMR informed that it conducted surveillance based on research from China which found that Coronavirus might have originated due to mutation in bats, and found that there are two types of bats, and they carried coronavirus which was not capable of affecting humans. He further stated that such situations were rare, citing that once in a thousand years it gets transmitted from bats to humans. "We also conducted surveillance, in which we found that there are two types of bats, and they carried #Coronavirus which was not capable of affecting humans. It's rare, maybe once in 1000 years that it gets transmitted from bats to humans," R Gangakhedkar, Head of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) stated. On Tuesday, the government stressed that the chain of transmission of coronavirus can be broken successfully if no case is reported for 28 days from a particular area. This comes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the morning announced the extension of countrywide lockdown till May 3. The information was given by Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Aggarwal during the daily press brief when he was asked out the 40-day lockdown (post extension). If no coronavirus COVID-19 case is reported for 28 days from a specific area, we can say we have been to break the chain of transmission," he replied to the question.