New Delhi: The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Tuesday has said that the final results of a serological survey to ascertain the spread of Covid-19 disease in the community are yet to be completed.
The medical research body was reacting to some media reports which said that over 15 percent of people in the country's hotspots areas are infected.
“The findings of the sero-survey published in the media were speculative at this stage,” the ICMR clarified.
It dismissed reports that one-third of the people living in containment zones and hotspots may have already been infected with Covid-19 and may have also recovered.
“These findings related to the ICMR sero-survey for Covid-19 are speculative and survey results are yet to be finalised”, an official from ICMR told ETV Bharat.
Reports in certain sections of the media said that around 15 percent to 30 percent of the population living in containment zones and hotspots had been exposed to the infection.
The findings have reportedly been shared with the union cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba and the Prime Minister’s Office.
Initiated by ICMR in May, the sero-survey was a household-level cross-sectional survey covering 69 districts in 21 states.
Sero-surveys help to understand the proportion of the population exposed to SARS-CoV-2 infection including asymptomatic individuals and depending on the level of sero-prevalence of infection, appropriate public health interventions can be planned and implemented for prevention and control of the disease.
As per ICMR, the survey will involve the collection of blood samples from 400 randomly selected individuals (one per household) from 10 clusters in each district.
The blood serum from these individuals will be tested for the presence of the IgG antibodies using the ELISA test developed by the National Institute of Virology, Pune.
Significantly, Zydus Cadila has supplied the kits for the survey.
Also read: Are There Possibilities Of Reinfection With COVID-19?
