Two days after news agency ANI cited Chairperson of Indian Medical Association (IMA) Hospital Board of India Dr VK Monga saying that community transmission of COVID-19 in India has started, IMA has issued a clarification and said that the statement is not from its headquarters and should be considered a matter of personal opinion.
In its official statement, the body said that it is for the official authorities to ascertain this stage.
"It is for the official agencies to ascertain this stage in the natural history of the epidemic. Crowd sourcing data cannot replace authentic data," the statement read.
"All presumptions in this regard should be considered a matter of personal opinion," it added.
IMA also exuded confidence that public health authorities and the medical fraternity are fully engaged and prepared in containing the fallout. It further stated that clusters are in urban metros and not in the countryside where open spaces are the rule.
On Saturday, Dr Monga had said that community spread of the deadly COVID-19 virus has started in India and adding that the situation is 'pretty bad'.
"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 overall this is now spreading to rural areas. This is a bad sign. It now shows a community spread," he was quoted by ANI as saying.
He added that the pandemic is now spreading to towns and villages where it will be very difficult to control the pandemic.
"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 state governments should take full care and seek help of the Central government to control the situation," Monga said.
Meanwhile, India reported over 40,000 fresh COVID-19 cases on Monday, taking the country's total count to 11,18,043. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has said that 1,40,47,908 samples have been tested for COVID-19 till July 17, of these 2,56,039 samples were tested on Sunday.
