Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions are Measures to Control Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) Transmission in India

• Published in: Coronaviruses Vol. 2; no. 3; pp. 278 - 283
• Main Authors: Vijayaraghavan, Ponnuswamy, Sriramkumar, Srikrishnan Rajendran
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bentham Science Publishers Ltd 2021
• ISSN: 2666-7967
• DOI: 10.2174/2666796701999200905092833

The coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) is a pathogenic and transmittable viral disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and this disease emerged in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. It was later spread across the world, including the United States, Great Britain, Brazil, Russia, Germany, Spain, Italy, Iran, Pakistan, India and other countries. The whole genome of SARS-CoV-2 shared some similarity with the SARS virus, hence bat was a suspected source of the spread of this virus in China. However, human to human transfer was reported. In India, more than 300 COVID-19 cases were reported on March 21, 2020, and these numbers were increased as 892551 on July 13, 2020. These numbers of COVID-19 cases were detected from a total of 11806256 samples according to the report given by the Government of India. On July 13, Maharashtra state of India recorded a total of 254427 cases and 10289 deaths were registered. Tamilnadu was another state that screened more number of COVID-19 cases, followed by Maharashtra. On July 6, 114978 COVID-19 cases were reported in Tamilnadu and 1571 deaths were recorded. In Tamilnadu alone, over 3000 COVID-19 cases were reported daily from July first week to the second week and total cases were 142798 on July 13, 2020. Among these cases, 78573 COVID-19 cases were detected in Chennai city alone accounted for about 62% of total COVID-19 cases. It was earlier believed that patients over aged 60 and less than 10 were highly vulnerable to this disease. However, this disease affected all age groups. To prevent COVID-19, no approved antiviral vaccine or drug has yet been discovered. COVID-19 is transmitted through droplets during coughing and sneezing by symptomatic and asymptomatic carriers. Non-pharmaceutical interventions such as washing hands and social distancing are effective measures to control COVID-19 transmission in India. The present study was designed to analyze the control measures of COVID-19 infection and ground reality to control the COVID-19 outbreak.