"I would like to appeal to everyone that we should look at how we can support the families and patients who have had COVID-19 rather than stigmatise them and not accept them in the society," said Guleria.
"Majority of the patients are coming alright and coming out and these are actually are symbols of hope that they have had COVID-19 and have come out and yet we have stigmatised them to a large extent. It is creating a pc; it is creating problems as far as society is concerned," he added.
Addressing a press conference here, Guleria said that the stigmatisation is making people not report to the healthcare authorities in case they have symptoms.
"Not only that, but it is also actually causing an increase in morbidity and mortality. Because of the stigma that is happening many patients who have COVID-19 or flu-like symptoms are not coming to health care facilities," Guleria further said.
He also said that the coronavirus infection is not that serious as majority of the people are recovering from it.
"This is a disease which is not that serious, 90-95 per cent people recover, if we have that stigma and we don't come forward then we may land up in a situation where because of our delayed treatment we may have higher mortality."
Meanwhile, India's count of COVID-19 has climbed to 21,393 after 1,409 new cases were reported in the last 24 hours, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare today.
( With inputs from ANI )