Govt calls for state-specific sero surveys

New Delhi, July 29, 2021 

The fourth round of National Sero-Prevalence Survey done by ICMR in 70 districts of India had found antibodies in 67.6% of the population.

The government on Wednesday asked states to conduct state-specific sero surveys to generate district-level data on sero-prevalence so that these findings would guide formulation of localised public health responses to manage Covid cases.

The fourth round of National Sero-Prevalence Survey done by ICMR in 70 districts of India had found antibodies in 67.6% of the population. The government said the national sero-survey by ICMR was designed to capture the extent of the spread of Covid infection at the national level so these results did not reflect the heterogeneity of sero-prevalence between districts and even between states.

Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Gujarat had more than 75% sero-positivity, while Maharashtra, Assam and Kerala reported below 60% sero-positivity and had a large population still vulnerable to the infection. The Union health secretary has written to all states/UTs advising to carry out sero surveys in consultation with Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to know the seroprevalence and utilised it for localised public health response measures.

There was a rise in daily new cases reported in the country at 43,654 cases on Wednesday. The active caseload in the country was 3,99,436. The daily positivity rate was 2.51%. India’s cumulative Covid-19 vaccination coverage reached 44.61 crore with 40 lakh vaccine doses administered in the last 24 hours.

Financial Express