No community spread of coronavirus in India: Dr Harsh Vardhan tells parliament

New Delhi: Responding to worried queries in the parliament, the Union Health minister has clarified that till now there has been no community spread of coronavirus in India.

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Friday that there was no community spread of coronavirus in the country and a defined protocol exists about who needs to go for a test.

Answering supplementaries during the question hour in Lok Sabha, the minister said the scientists in the country were doing their own research about coronavirus and were also in touch with their counterparts in other countries.

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"There is a very defined protocol about who needs to be tested," the minister said.

He said those with symptoms and travel history need to go for tests and the ministry was also doing a detailed contact tracing.

He said the infection was traveling from one person to another and "has not gone to the community".

The minister said the Indian Council of Medical Research was doing tests to see if there was community spread. "Whatever test we are doing is with perfect scientific advice," he said.

Answering a query from Congress member Manish Tewari about the need to investigate the origins of coronavirus to be sure that it is a naturally occurring virus and not a result of scientific experiments gone astray, the minister said that India was in touch with World Health Organisation.

He said a lot of things were circulating on social media and there was "no authenticity in them".

He said the origin of the disease is being investigated.

"We are focusing on our country," he said and added that the ministry was using authentic information to the best use.

Tewari said China was not giving WHO access to Wuhan to investigate the origins of coronavirus.

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