Hindustan Times : Aug 20, 2020, 12:56 PM
New Delhi: The second serological (sero) survey in national capital Delhi revealed that the percentage of people who have antibodies against the coronavirus disease increased to 29.1 per cent.Out of these, females had a higher rate of 32.2 per cent, whereas 28.3 per cent of males had these antibodies.The results of the survey were announced by Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain on Thursday. “The second serological survey which was conducted between 1-7 August shows that 29.1% of people have developed antibodies against Covid-19. A total of 15,000 samples were collected during the survey,” said Jain.These surveys are conducted to determine the extent of exposure to the Sars-CoV-2 virus that causes the coronavirus disease.The first such survey was conducted between June 27 and July 10. Of those surveyed in that instance, 22.6 per cent had antibodies against the infection.Compared to the first serological survey, where close to 21,800 samples were collected from across the national capital, the second round comprised of over 15,000 samples which were randomly collected between August 1 and 7. Of the total samples collected this time, half were from people between the ages of 18 and 49.According to the government’s standard operating procedure (SOP), the highest number of samples were collected from the Northwest district (2,200), followed by West (2,145), and Central (1,548). The fewest were from New Delhi district, where over 880 samples were collected.The sero surveys conducted in other states have detected high antibody positivity rates among the population in cities such as Mumbai and Delhi and low rates in primarily rural states such as Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.These surveys are being conducted in select districts by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) and state governments to detect how many people have developed immunoglobulin (IgG) antibodies to the coronavirus disease and to gauge the extent of infection through random sampling.