WHO says infection spread from asymptomatic COVID-19 patients could be rare

The World Health Organization has on June 8, 2020 said that the coronavirus patients who do not have symptoms are not driving the spread of the virus. On the other hand many of the researchers have opined that people infected with COVID-19 and are asymptomatic, could be more dangerous as it might go unnoticed in many and could lead in the spread of the virus. It can also become difficult to contain the virus because of such asymptomatic patients.

There are many people who are young and are otherwise healthy individuals, could not have any symptoms or very mild ones. While there could also be people who might not even develop symptoms even days after they were actually infected. Some of the early research has found that the virus can potentially spread from a person to person contact, even if the carrier did not have the symptoms. But now officials from WHO have said that a spread from asymptomatic people can occur, but that is not the main way it could be transmitted.

Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, who is the head of the emerging diseases at WHO, in a news briefing said that from the data they have , it seems to be very rare that an asymptomatic person could actually be able to transmit to a secondary individual. Van Kerkhove added that the government should focus on people who are infected and having symptoms and people who have come in contact with that person should be traced.

However, more research is needed to actually know what actually the facts are. There are also some countries who are doing contact tracing with details and they are also following asymptomatic people. While the asymptomatic people are being traced, they are not finding any transmission from them onwards. Such a case is very rare though. More research is needed in this case and people should continue to be careful with such asymptomatic infected people.

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