Sero surveillance pilot project is nearing completion: coordinator

Plan to launch it in other districts from early next week, he says

Healthy persons with strong immunity, infected by the novel coronavirus, will not even know about it. When the virus enters the body, the infected person’s body produces antibodies, which kill the virus.

Such persons with strong immunity can be rest assured that they will not get COVID-19 again.

The spike in number of infection cases in the State is a cause for alarm.

Though the rise in the number of positive cases is partially attributed to increased testing, knowing the immunity levels in varied groups of people and in different regions will help in better planning of remedial measures to tackle the pandemic.

It will be a matter of solace for the government, if a large percentage of people have high immunity. The State government has launched sero surveillance to assess the herd immunity among people.

The testing of samples as part of the pilot project in Krishna, Anantapur, East Godavari and Nellore districts, which commenced last week, is in an advanced staged of completion.

“The samples will be tested for the IgG antibody, which is produced in the blood, after an infection. The presence of IgG in the blood of a person, indicates that the person concerned, was already affected and cured of the virus, without his knowledge. The sero surveillance is planned to be taken up in other districts of the State early next week,” Dr. K. Rambabu, State COVID-19 Coordinator and Professor of Medicine, Andhra Medical College, told The Hindu .

The surveillance, being conducted as per the guidelines of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), involves collection of blood samples from healthy persons, who haven’t got themselves tested for COVID-19 before.

A total of 15,000 samples, 3,750 from each of the four districts, is being collected in the first phase.

Of the 3,750 samples, 3,000 would be collected from the general population and 750 from high-risk population. The sample collection will be in the ratio of 70:30 from rural and urban areas and in the same ratio from containment and non-containment zones respectively.

“The survey in Visakhapatnam and other districts of the State is also planned on similar lines. The standard operating procedure (SOP) is yet to be prepared in this regard. However, the number of tests will depend on the testing kits to be procured. The testing in four districts is nearing completion. However, analysis of the results could take an additional 10 days,” adds Dr. Rambabu.