Condemning the ‘stigma’ associated with people infected with coronavirus, the Union Health Ministry on Monday called on the public to honor health workers and other frontline professionals, who are at the forefront of dealing with the spread of coronaviruses in the country.

In the government’s daily press talk on the coronavirus situation in the country, Lav Agarwal, joint secretary of the Union Ministry of Health, stressed that “the fight was against the disease rather than the patient.”

“There is a lack of awareness in society about the spread of coronavirus. If we attach a stigma to the person, then they might fear coming forward and disclose the infection,” said Agarwal, adding that the process was affecting the entire treatment process and hindering the check of the disease.

Agarwal said that the recovered patients cannot be the source of transmission of the disease. Agarwal said, “They are a source of healing.” He revealed during his briefing that as of Monday, more than 22 percent of the virus-infected people in India had managed to recover.

Interestingly, the World Health Organization has stated that there was no evidence to prove that people recovering cannot be the source of another infection.

In a scientific brief published on April 25 by the global health body, it said there was no evidence that “people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from another infection.”

So far, a total of 6,184 patients in India, or 22.17 out of 27,982 people who are infected with the virus, have undergone a recovery. The official said that three hundred eighty-one (381) patients were cured and 1,396 cases were reported in the last 24 hours.

Addressing the press before Agarwal, Union Home Ministry representative Punya Salil Srivastava said that 80 percent of wheat has been harvested in the country’s farms so far, and 80 percent mandis (wholesale markets) are operational. He assured that rural workers have to go back to work due to employment opportunities through schemes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).