Community spread worries swirl in MP’s hot spot Indore
BHOPAL: Around 50% of the Covid-19 patients in Indore, the commercial capital of Madhya Pradesh, have no recent travel history or exposure to another person infected by the coronavirus, indicating that they caught the disease possibly through community transmission, health officials said.
Indore recorded its first Covid-19 case on March 25, five days after the first four cases in the state were reported from Jabalpur. The number of cases grew steadily—five more on March 26, four each on March 27 and 28 and three on March 29.
The spurt in cases began on March 30, when 19 new cases were identified. As of Saturday night, Indore accounted for 128 of Madhya Pradesh’s 179 Covid-19 patients.
Only a few people identified as Covid-19-positive had a travel history or exposure to a person known to be suffering from the disease, indicating the likelihood of community transmission, said a health department official of Indore district, who is maintaining records of all Covid-19 positive cases.
Community transmission, known as stage 3 in a pandemic of the Covid-19 kind, is suspected when the source of infection cannot be identified and is seen as a sign of the virus spreading in local communities. Indian medical authorities have so far not acknowledged that the country has reached that stage.
A health department official, requesting anonymity, said that when the initial cases were reported in Indore, little screening of people had taken place in the densely populated neighbourhoods where they surfaced.
The complete lockdown starting on March 25 had also not been strictly enforced, the official said.
“This may have caused some community spread,” the official added.
The MP government on March 30 replaced collector Lokesh Kumar Jatav and deputy inspector general of police Ruchivardhan Mishra with Manish Singh and Harinarayan Chari Mishra, respectively. Jatav declined to speak on the alleged lapses that took place in containing the spread of infections. The new collector should brief the media about the situation in Indore, Jatav said.
What shocked health officials was that about 70 patients, or 80% of the Covid-19 patients identified as of Thursday night, had no recent history of travel.
Chief medical and health officer (CMHO), Indore, Dr Praveen Jadia said, “Most of the cases don’t have a travel history. We suspect that the first four cases may have got the disease and unknowingly spread it to others.”
The first cases were reported from Ranipura, Chandan Nagar and Khajrana and spread to other neighbourhoods , indicating that the enforcement of the lockdown had been lax.
Anwar Qadri, a local corporator , agreed with Jadia. “We are also baffled as to how the virus spread so fast in these localities,” he said, that unlike in other places, Indore’s Muslims had an insignificant association with the Tablighi Jamaat, the Islamic group whose Delhi headquarters hosted an international congregation last month and emerged as a hot spot of the coronavirus disease. At least 1,023 cases have been linked to the Jamaat event.
A HEALTH DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL SAID THAT WHEN THE INITIAL CASES WERE REPORTED IN INDORE, LITTLE SCREENING OF PEOPLE HAD TAKEN PLACE