The Coronavirus outbreak in India runs the risk of “exploding” as the country moves towards unlocking its nationwide lockdown that was imposed since March 25 to contain the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, according to a top World Health Organisation (WHO) expert.

WHO Health Emergencies Programme Executive Director Michael Ryan on Friday, said the doubling time of the coronavirus cases in India is about three weeks at this stage.

“So the direction of travel of the epidemic is not exponential but it is still growing,” he said, adding that the impact of the pandemic is different in different parts of India and varies between urban and rural settings.

Recording the highest single-day spike in the number of COVID-19 coronavirus cases and deaths for the third consecutive day, India on Saturday reported 9,887 fresh cases and 294 fatalities. While before the lockdown started the country had registered 512 coronavirus infection cases till March 24.

With this jump, the total number of COVID-19 cases in the country has climbed to 2,36,657 and the death toll stands at 6,642, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has informed.

With over 2.36 lakh cases, India has overtaken Italy (234,531) as the sixth worst-hit country.

“In South Asia, not just in India but in Bangladesh and…in Pakistan, other countries in South Asia, with large dense populations, the disease has not exploded. But there is always the risk of that happening,” Ryan said in Geneva.

WHO health expert stressed that as the disease generates and creates a foothold in communities, it can accelerate at any time as has been seen in a number of settings.

Ryan noted that measures taken in India such as the nationwide lockdown have had an impact in slowing transmission but the risk of an increase in cases looms as the country opens up.

“The measures taken in India certainly had an impact in dampening transmission and as India, as in other large countries, open up and as people begin to move again, there’s always a risk of the disease bouncing back up,” he said.

He added that there are specific issues in India regarding the large amount of migration, the dense populations in the urban environment and the fact that many workers have no choice but to go to work every day.

WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan said the over 200,000 current coronavirus cases in India, a country of over 1.3 billion people, “look big but for a country of this size, it’s still modest.”

She stressed that it is important for India to keep track of the growth rate, the doubling time of the virus and to make sure that that number doesn’t get worse.

She said that India is a heterogeneous and huge country with very densely populated cities and much lower density in some rural areas and varying health systems in different states and these offer challenges to the control of COVID-19.

Swaminathan added that as the lockdown and restrictions are lifted, it must be ensured that all precautions are taken by people.

“We’ve been making this point repeatedly that really if you want behaviour change at a large level, people need to understand the rationale for asking them to do certain things (such as) wearing masks,” she said.

In many urban areas in India, it’s impossible to maintain physical distancing, she said adding that it then becomes very important for people to wear appropriate face coverings when they are out, in office settings, in public transport and educational institutions.

As some states are thinking about opening, every institution, organisation, industry and sector needs to think about what are the measures that need to be put in place before you can allow a functioning and it may never be back to normal.

She said that in many professions working from home can be encouraged but in several jobs, people have to go to work and in such cases measures must be put in place that allow people to protect themselves and others.

“I think communication and behaviour change is a very large part of this whole exercise,” she added.

On May 30, the Centre took an exit step from the 68-day nationwide lockdown, declaring that the restrictions will be limited only to containment zones up to June 30 and that the prohibited activities will be opened in a phased manner in areas outside these zones, allowing restaurants, malls, religious places and education sectors to open in a phased manner.

Lockdown 5.0 or Unlock has kicked in with some major relaxations compared to the previous phase of the lockdown including travelling between borders of states.

According to the guidelines in phase I, religious places and places of worship for public, hotels, restaurants and other hospitality services; and shopping malls will be permitted to open from June 8, 2020.