Assessing COVID-19 situation: Second round of sero survey begins in Delhi, extended till Aug 7

New Delhi: A fresh sero-prevalence survey in the national capital began on Saturday for a comprehensive assessment of the COVID-19 situation, but due to the Eid holiday not many samples could be collected, officials said.
Hence, it has been decided to extend the survey till August 7, a senior official said.

Originally, the survey was supposed to be a five-day exercise from August 1-5.

It began with samples being collected from four districts, including North Delhi and Northwest Delhi, on Saturday, and will span all districts and cover various demographic segments.

A senior government official said not many samples could be collected on Saturday since it was a festival day. So, the survey has been extended by two days till August 7.

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain told reporters the previous survey had indicated that about 24 per cent of the people whose samples were taken had shown presence of antibodies, meaning they had got infected and recovered.

A fresh survey is bring undertaken to find out the situation in the city since the previous sampling, so that better decisions can be made to tackle COVID-19, he said.

Earlier in the day, a senior government official said 15,000 samples would be collected as part of this exercise spanning different areas and age groups.

Representative samples will be taken from all the 11 districts of Delhi.

A sero-prevalence survey involves testing the blood serum of individuals to check for the prevalence of antibodies against infection.

The last such survey was conducted by the Delhi government in association with the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) from June 27 to July 10.

The second round would follow the same protocol as that of the last survey, officials said.

All chief district medical officers (CDMO) have been tasked with carrying out the survey in their districts. Random people will be tested for antibodies.

The last survey had tested 21,387 samples. Prior to that, a similar exercise was carried out in April in containment zones only.