Late detected asymptomatic infections caused/led to widespread outbreak in Bapu Dham: PGI study

Naina Mishra

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 18

Asymptomatic infections were responsible for the late detection and delayed isolation of cases leading to widespread Covid-19 outbreak in Bapu Dham Colony according to researchers of the PGIMER, who studied the first superspreader event in the city.

Doctors of the PGIMER have declared the first infected man from Bapu Dham Colony as the city’s first superspreader in the recent case study published in a journal of primary care and community health.

A superspreader is someone, who is more likely to infect other humans, when compared to a typically infected person.

According to researchers, there may be two reasons for spreading infection in this particular case. First, the person was living in a densely populated low-income settlement colony where physical distancing between individuals was not possible. Second is the high number of community contacts the person had. This coupled with asymptomatic infections was responsible for the late detection and delayed isolation of cases leading to widespread outbreak.

“Even though all efforts were made to do contact tracing of the superspreader, these numbers may not reflect the true story as sometimes patients are not forthcoming with their history of contact due to stigma associated with quarantine,” read the report.

Another important limitation was that 10 community contacts belonging to three families were only screened and did not undergo RT-PCR test for the Covid-19, the report added.

Furthermore, the report stated those contacts of asymptomatic cases, who tested negative, repeat testing was not done between Day 5 to Day 14.

Repeat testing in such cases is recommended as it is difficult to assess the last date of exposure and due to the limited sensitivity of the RT-PCR test.

A 33-year-old male, who resided in a low-income settlement comprising rehabilitated and resettlement colony in Chandigarh and worked as a healthcare worker (HCW) in a tertiary care hospital tested positive in RT-PCR test for SARS-CoV2.

On contact tracing, a history of attending a small community function in the locality was found and a total of 125 contacts were traced of which 65 were community and 60 were workplace contacts.

The report stated that the testing was done for 55 community and all 60 workplace contacts of which 34 community and six workplace contacts were found Covid positive.

Therefore in total, 49 Covid-19 infections had direct or indirect contact with the index case qualifying him as a “superspreader”.