Surveillance crucial to flatten the curve

Your assessment of India’s response to Covid-19.

At the onset of the outbreak, India took Covid-19 seriously and responded pre-emptively. Strong interventions included early travel advisories, mandatory airport screening, contact tracing, expanding and strengthening the surveillance and testing, complemented with uniform implementation of physical distancing measures throughout the country in March.

Going forward, what should be India’s testing strategy?

It was indeed important that the testing strategy was broadened, and now includes symptomatic health workers and all hospital patients with Severe Acute Respiratory Infection. It has also been expanded to Influenza-like-illness (ILI) patients from hotspots areas.

Private sector engagement is crucial for increasing India’s capacity for testing, and currently there are about 90 accredited private laboratory chains capable of conducting RT-PCR (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction). This will be further expanded.

How is the WHO supporting India?

The WHO is supporting India at all levels of the health system—national, state and district level. We are providing policy advice at the central level, working closely with National Centre for Disease Control, Indian Council of Medical Research and NITI Aayog. This includes advice about surveillance, infection prevention and control, containment strategy, testing, quality control and laboratory supplies, guidelines and protocols, risk communication and community engagement. We are encouraged that India is participating in the global initiative—WHO Solidarity Trial—for treatment and vaccines. Through this collaboration, Indian researchers and institutions will participate in a global initiative to test therapeutics, standardise regulatory approaches on innovative trial designs and define the criteria to prioritise treatment protocols.

In what ways can strengthening of surveillance help a country such as India?

As states are in different stages of the outbreak, the surveillance system will be key in early detection and response to new cases. The ongoing, systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of Covid-19 data through surveillance will guide the disease management and control measures in India, especially as we move away from the lockdown. This will be crucial to flatten the curve.

What is the update on drug and vaccine development?

India will be a part of the Solidarity Trial. Furthermore, a global Covid-19 accelerated vaccine venture has been established and the WHO will coordinate an unprecedented partnership of stakeholders, which is needed to align the ecosystem around a dedicated vaccine master plan, for speed of innovation and scale of delivery.