The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has tested over than 10,000 people in the country’s financial capital under sero-survey and the result of the same are soon to be out. The survey was carried out in three wards – M-West (Chembur), F-North and R-North (Dahisar). The survey was conducted in collaboration with NITI Ayog and other institutes.
A sero survey is conducted to map the trend of infection and spread of the virus and to be able to carry out a comparative analysis of the data to device appropriate and effective action plan. The BMC is planning another survey next month to compare the findings from the two exercises. Maharashtra has over 327,000 coronavirus cases till date, of which over 182,000 have recovered while more than 12,000 patients have succumbed to death.
This comes after the sero survey findings in Delhi showed 23 percent of patients to have developed antibodies. The Delhi administration plans to conduct a sero survey every month to monitor the Covid-19 trend and work up an action plan to free the national capital from the menace of the virus.
Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain said that the exercise will be carried out from the 1st till the 5th of every month. The recent findings from Delhi’s sero surveillance suggest that the national capital has crossed its Covid-19 peak and that the fear of case explosion in the city is also gone.
Dr Sujeet K Singh, director of the Union health ministry’s National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), told HT that the findings from the sero surveillance serve as important data to guide containment strategies. He said that such an exercise needs to be done periodically to know the exact burden of the disease from time to time and device appropriate strategies. To establish a trend, this type of survey needs to be repeated and it will be repeated in coming months, Singh noted.
