Over 28% of Covid cases asymptomatic in India: IJMR

NEW DELHI: Indian Journal of Medical Research (IJMR) has discovered that around 28 per cent of the total Covid-19 patients are asymptomatic of the virus. The study further has revealed that 25.3 per cent of these were direct contacts of the positive cases. Further, 2.8 per cent of these were healthcare workers who were in contact with corona patients without adequate protection. In totality, healthcare workers constitute of 5.2 per cent of the total infected in India. Manoj Murhekar, Director, National Institute of Epidemiology, has expressed concern over the situation as the proportion of asymptomatic corona-positive cases might be greater than the currently estimated 28.1 per cent.

The ICMR study has taken the time frame of January 22 to April 30 and adds to the growing concerns of the spread of the virus from those people who show mild to no symptoms of the virus. In a bid to check this, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is currently conducting a sero-survey to get a better estimate of the prevalence of community transmission in India. The Council is randomly testing people from 70 districts to check for the virus. 

The study, which tested a total of 10,21,528 people for severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), has shown that the attack rate (per million) by age was the highest among people between 50-69 years (63.3) and lowest among kids under 10 years (6.1).