New Delhi/Chennai, March 19: A 20-year-old man from Delhi contracted the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, in Chennai - the second case in Tamil Nadu. Since the man tested positive for coronavirus did not travel to any COVID-19-hit country, the case has raised concerns of community transmission of the disease. However, a senior official of the health department said the case cannot be termed as community transmission yet.

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"In Delhi, this man had come in contact with a person with foreign travel history. Only when many such people report we can call it community transmission," the official told NDTV. The Health Secretary Dr Beela Rajesh added, "We are tracing the contact presently." The patient is being treated at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai and his health condition is stable. The first coronavirus patient in Tamil Nadu was discharged from the hospital on Tuesday. Chandigarh Reports First Case of Coronavirus as 23-Year-Old Woman With Travel History to UK Tests Positive.

Community transmission will occur when a person with no travel history to a coronavirus-hit country or known contact with a confirmed case tests positive for the disease. In a report by Hindustan Times, experts said community transmission of coronavirus may have begun in India. However, it has not emerged yet because India is not testing enough people, they added. The World Health Organization (WHO) has asked India to test more people for coronavirus.

"Community transmission began in India two to three weeks ago, around the same time as other countries. India is not an exception to the way the virus behaves. We just haven’t tested a representative sample that the country’s population of 1.34 billion demands,"  Ramanan Laxminayanan, director and senior fellow at Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy, was quoted as saying. He pitched for random testing of the free-living population.

“We need to test people in hospital OPDs [Out Patient Departments] and ask people with mild symptoms to stay quarantined at home and treat the sick in isolation to save the patient, stop infection and get a handle on the invisible epidemic. If testing is not stepped up immediately, it will be too late,” warned Ramanan.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), which is entrusted with the responsibility of containing the outbreak, has maintained that there is no community spread in India yet. At present, the ICMR is randomly testing around 2,000 samples of patients suspected to have coronavirus daily.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 19, 2020 09:22 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).