ICMR To Survey 82 Districts Across India To Check For Community Transmission Of COVID-19 Via Random Sample Finger-Prick

Bengaluru, 21 April 2020:

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has identified 82 districts in 25 states for a study to check community transmission. In Karnataka, three districts have been identified for the study. These are, Kalaburagi, Bengaluru and Chitradurga.

In Bengaluru, nine wards have been identified for the study which will be largely bases on randomly collected samples, stated Karnataka Health Commissioners Pankaj Kumar Pandey in a press briefing over a web call.

Until Monday evening, Karnataka reported 408 COVID-19 positive cases with 18 new cases confirmed on Monday. All these have been through primary and secondary contacts.

ICMR has set up a national task force and a epidemiology expert group which is entrusted to develop a scientific protocol for population-based nation sero-prevalence of COVID-19. The council stated that this will be complementary to the efforts of the state and central disease surveillance for overall COVID-19 response.

To facilitate the quality implementation of the survey, the state will need to engage all ICMR institutes, community medicine departments of all medical colleges and all public health institutes.

According to Pandey, if there are no positive cases in the randomly tested population of the three districts is, then there is no community transmission.

In the study, which spans over three months, will be conducted on those above 18 years of age. There will be two rounds in the first month and one each in the remaining two months. The teams will visit households randomly, brief them about the survey, obtain verbal consent, gather details on demography and exposure history to lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases. The test is a finger-prick method. Pharmabiz