Almost 80 per cent of positive cases in India asymptomatic: Harsh Vardhan

New Delhi: Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Thursday said almost 80 per cent of the COVID-19 cases in India are asymptomatic or at best with very mild symptoms.

In an exclusive interview to IANS, the Health Minister said, "Even today, in almost 80 per cent of the cases of COVID-19, which are being reported in India, the patients tend to exhibit either nil or mild symptoms. These patients are mostly contacts of confirmed cases. Interestingly, had it not been for our contact tracing efforts, and if left to their own in isolation, these patients may not have even remembered or reported their infection."

Harsh Vardhan, who has recently been elected the chief of WHO's Executive Board, was answering a query on whether asymptomatic patients who are potential virus carriers and who can take the virus deeper into rural India are causing worry to the government.

He said, "I am aware about WHO's mention of some laboratory-confirmed cases that are truly asymptomatic. It is equally true, that as on date, there has been no documented asymptomatic transmission."

However, he added that recently, more symptoms like headache, muscle pain, pink eye, loss of smell, or loss of taste, intense chills, rigors and sore throat have been included in the list of COVID-19 symptoms by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the United States. "It will require more studies before these symptoms are finally included in our list in India," he quipped.

He added that the new symptoms were very subjective and vague which might go unnoticed, might not be remembered by the patient and, thus, might even go unreported. "Moreover, if for a moment we talk of testing such asymptotic patients, identification of all these asymptomatic cases will require repeated testing of 1.3 billion population which is a resource expensive exercise for any country and is neither possible nor recommended," the Health Minister said.

He emphasized on priority-based and targeted testing and said that it will be helpful in detecting more cases of COVID-19 and curbing the disease. "With our efforts at sustained and quality assured scaling up of the testing facilities, I am sure, we shall be better placed for maximum case detection," he concluded.

194 deaths in last 24 hrs

The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 4,531 and the number of cases climbed to 1,58,333 in the country, registering an increase of 194 deaths and 6,566 cases in the last 24 hours since 8 am.

The number of active COVID-19 cases stand at 86,110 while 67,691 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, the Union Health Ministry said on Thursday.

"Thus, around 42.75 per cent patients have recovered so far," a senior Health Ministry official said.

Of the 194 deaths reported since Wednesday morning, 105 were in Maharashtra, 23 in Gujarat, 15 in Delhi, 12 in Uttar Pradesh, eight in Madhya Pradesh, six each in Tamil Nadu, Telangana and West Bengal, three each in Karnataka and Rajasthan, two each in Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir and one each in Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Kerala.

Of the total 4,531 fatalities, Maharashtra tops the tally with 1,897 deaths followed by Gujarat with 938 deaths, Madhya Pradesh with 313, Delhi with 303, West Bengal with 289, Uttar Pradesh with 182, Rajasthan with 173,Tamil Nadu with 133, Telangana with 63 and Andhra Pradesh with 58 deaths.

The death toll reached 47 in Karnataka and 40 in Punjab. Jammu and Kashmir has reported 26 fatalities due to the disease, Haryana has 18deaths while Bihar has registered 15. Odisha and Kerala have reported seven deaths each, Himachal Pradesh five, whilw Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Chandigarh and Assam have recorded four deaths each so far.

Meghalaya has reported one COVID-19 fatality so far, according to the ministry data.

According to the ministry's website, more than 70 per cent of the deaths are due to co-morbidities.

According to the Health Ministry data updated in the morning, the highest number of confirmed cases in the country are from Maharashtra at 56,948 followed by Tamil Nadu at 18,545, Delhi at 15,257, Gujarat at 15,195, Rajasthan at 7,703, Madhya Pradesh at 7,261 and Uttar Pradesh at 6,991.

The number of COVID-19 cases has gone up to 4,192 in West Bengal, 3,171 in Andhra Pradesh and 3,061 in Bihar.

It has risen to 2,418 in Karnataka, 2,139 in Punjab, 2,098 in Telangana, 1,921 in Jammu and Kashmir and 1,593 in Odisha.

Haryana has reported 1,381 coronavirus cases so far while Kerala has 1,004 cases. A total of 781 people have been infected with the virus in Assam and 448 in Jharkhand.

Uttarakhand has 469, Chhattisgarh has 369, Chandigarh has reported 279 cases, Himachal Pradesh has 273, Tripura has 230 and Goa has registered 68 cases so far.

Ladakh has reported 53 COVID-19 cases, Puducherry has 46 instances of infection, Manipur has 44, while Andaman and Nicobar Islands has registered 33 cases.

Meghalaya has registered 20. Nagaland has reported four infections, Dadar and Nagar Haveli and Arunachal Pradesh have reported two cases each while Mizoram and Sikkim have reported a case each till how.

"4,332 cases are being reassigned to states," the ministry said on its website adding "Our figures are being reconciled with the ICMR."

State-wise distribution is subject to further verification and reconciliation, it said.