Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the apex health research body of India has been the nodal authority for testing of patients for COVID-19.

The Council has been closely monitoring the presence of community transmissions in the country.

Since February 15, ICMR has initiated sentinel surveillance to detect community transmission of COVID19. The surveillance sites have been scaled up from 16 sites till Feb 29, 2020 to 51 sites by March 15, 2020.



Till date, a total of 826 samples of the people suffering from severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) /influenza like illnesses have been tested at the sites. None of the samples were found positive.



In view of the evolving nature of COVID19 transmission, the surveillance is being expanded to include more areas specially areas where COVID19 cases have been reported.