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LETTER TO EDITOR |
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Year : 2022 | Volume
: 17
| Issue : 4 | Page : 1025 |
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“This area is free from coronavirus disease 2019” – Real or lure?
Sora Yasri1, Viroj Wiwanitkit2
1 KMT Primary Care Center, Bangkok, Thailand 2 Department of Honorary, Dr. DY Patil University, Pune, Maharashtra, India; Department of Tropical Medicine, Hainan Medical University, Haikou, China
Date of Submission | 18-Mar-2020 |
Date of Acceptance | 30-Mar-2020 |
Date of Web Publication | 10-Feb-2023 |
Correspondence Address: Dr. Sora Yasri KMT Primary Care Center, Bangkok Thailand
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/jdmimsu.jdmimsu_68_20
How to cite this article: Yasri S, Wiwanitkit V. “This area is free from coronavirus disease 2019” – Real or lure?. J Datta Meghe Inst Med Sci Univ 2022;17:1025 |
Dear Editor,
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) already causes a problem in more than 150 countries around the world. Of interest, the difference of incidence of COVID-19 among affected countries is observed. The risk of transmission is usually calculated based on the reported incidence internationally.[1] Some areas, such as Indochina and African countries, have very low incidence of disease. It becomes a new question on the reliability of the number of reported COVID cases from each country. There are many considerations including the availability of diagnostic tool, data recording system, possible immunity to disease among local people, and possible attempt to disguise the exact number of case. There are many interesting examples of this issue. The case of imported COVID-19 to South Korea from Thailand[2] during the early phase of disease emergence in Thailand is a good example. Another incidence is the low incidence of disease in Cambodia, but there is an imported case from Cambodia to a nearby country. The reported number of COVID-19 might not be a reliable data in some cases. Sometimes, planning to screen the foreigner for COVID-19 might be based on the data on disease incidence in different countries. Giving more attention to some countries while neglecting the others is possible, and this might result in ineffective case detection. We should not be lured by the number!
Financial support and sponsorship
Nil.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts of interest.
References | |  |
1. | Haider N, Yavlinsky A, Simons D, Osman AY, Ntoumi F, Zumla A, et al. Passengers' destinations from China: Low risk of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) transmission into Africa and South America. Epidemiol Infect 2020;148:e41. |
2. | COVID-19 National Emergency Response Center, Epidemiology and Case Management Team, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Early epidemiological and clinical characteristics of 28 cases of coronavirus disease in South Korea. Osong Public Health Res Perspect 2020;11:8-14. |
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