NOVEL CORONAVIRUS (nCov-2019/COVID-19)

India ramps up efforts to contain the spread of Novel CoronaVirus :

On 12 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, which was reported to the WHO on 31 December 2019.

The first case of the COVID-19 pandemic in India was reported on 30 January 2020.

On 30 January, India reported its first case of COVID-19 in Kerala, which rose to three cases by 3 February; all were students who had returned from Wuhan, China. No significant rise in cases was seen in the rest of February. On 4 March 22 new cases came to light, including those of an Italian tourist group with 14 infected members.

The transmission escalated during March, after several cases were reported all over the country, most of which were linked to people with a travel history to affected countries. On 12 March, a 76-year-old man who had returned from Saudi Arabia became the first victim of the virus in the country.

On 11 March 2020, WHO declared Novel CoronaVirus Disease (COVID-19) outbreak as a pandemic and reiterated the call for countries to take immediate actions and scale up response to treat, detect and reduce transmission to save people’s lives.

PRIME MINISTER ‘S APPEAL TO OUR CITIZENS and Lockdown 2020 :

On 19 March 2020, Modi asked all citizens to observe "Janata Curfew" (people's curfew) from 7 am to 9 pm on Sunday, 22 March.

On 22 March 2020, India observed a 14-hour voluntary public curfew at the instance of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He implored all Indians to stay at home for the next few weeks, and if possible, to also work from home. He also asked citizens to step out onto their house rooftops or balconies at 5 pm on 22 March, and clap their hands to appreciate the hard work of emergency services like doctors, police, health workers, emergency medical services, emergency health services, government officials, home delivery services, etc..

The government followed it up with lockdowns in 75 districts where COVID-19 cases had occurred as well as all major cities.  The lockdown was placed when the number of confirmed positive coronavirus cases in India was approximately 500.

Further, on 24 March, the prime minister ordered a nationwide lockdown for 21 days, affecting the entire 1.3 billion population of India.

• On 14 April, the prime minister extended the ongoing nationwide lockdown till 3 May.
• On 1 May, lockdown across the country was further extended by two more weeks till 17 May.
• On 17 May, NDMA extended the lockdown till 31 May in all Indian States.

Zonal classification

The Government divided the entire nation into three zones – Green Zone, Red Zone, Orange Zone.

• Red zone (Hotspots) – districts with high doubling rate and high number of active cases
• Orange zone (Non-hotspots) – districts with fewer cases
• Green zone – districts without confirmed cases or without new cases in last 21 days

WHO Country Office for India support :

The WHO Country Office for India has been working closely with MoHFW, on preparedness and response measures for COVID-19, including disease surveillance, laboratory and research protocols, risk communications, training on infection prevention and control and cluster containment plan, surveillance and tracking of travelers.

In a video-conference held on 15 April 2020, MoHFW and WHO deliberated on further strengthening the partnership and additional measures that can be taken to step up the response to COVID-19 in the country. In his address, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare said, "WHO is an important partner in our fight against the COVID-19. I really value guidance and contributions made by the WHO in containing spread of COVID-19 across the country."

"India is now in a decisive phase of the response. As in the case of polio, in combating COVID-19 too, surveillance is playing a central role.  Accordingly, at the request of the government, WHO has further stepped up the support in strengthening ongoing surveillance and response at state, district and block levels; cluster containment activities; strengthening real-time data collection activities; and accelerated implementation of the national Integrated Health Information Platform. Our entire field presence, including the National Public Health Surveillance Project, has been fully re-purposed to support the government to overcome this challenge," says Dr Henk Bekedam, WHO Representative to India.

The latest count of CoronaVirus cases in India as confirmed by the Government of India.

Sources :

• https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/
• https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
• https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus
• https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/index.html
• https://www.mohfw.gov.in

*Disclaimer : The data is updated on a daily basis at 09:00 AM (IST). The counts may vary.