LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh government will begin its first serological survey to determine the prevalence of deadly coronavirus infection among people across 11 districts including the state capital Lucknow from Friday.
The 11 districts to be put under the serological survey are Meerut, Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Kaushambi, Prayagraj, Moradabad, Ghaziabad, Baghpat, and Agra from September 4 to 6.
According to Additional Chief Secretary (health and family welfare) Amit Mohan Prasad, the survey was being conducted in coordination with Lucknow’s King George’s Medical University (KGMU). The survey would involve testing of blood serum of a group of individuals to determine the presence of antibodies against the Sars-CoV-2 that causes Covid-19. Prasad said dedicated teams were being imparted training to conduct the survey.
As per the sources, 1,080 blood samples would be collected from select groups of people for the survey in each of the 11 districts. The samples will be sent to the KGMU to ascertain the presence of antibodies.
“Our lab is ready for the serological survey testing. As soon as we start getting the samples, we will start testing,” said Dr. Sudhir Singh, KGMU spokesman. “We have been testing samples for Covid-19 on reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) machines and the lab has been functioning here in the microbiology department since March. The staff is trained and equipment ready,” added Dr. Singh.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has conducted a separate serological survey in seven districts, including Balrampur, Gonda, Mau, Unnao, Auraiya, Saharanpur, and Gautam Buddha Nagar. However, the data is likely to be released by the National Institute of Epidemiology, Chennai, in mid-September.
While the ICMR survey focused on the districts with a large chunk of the rural population, the state health department would concentrate on urban hubs where the maximum spread of the infection was being reported.
ICMR had conducted a sero survey across nine UP districts – Amroha, Saharanpur, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Bareilly, Balrampur, Mau, Auraiyya, Gonda, and Unnao -- in early May. The result had reflected that then merely 1% of the population in the nine districts had evidence of past exposure to the deadly coronavirus.
The difference between the current survey and the earlier one is that it was conducted at the time of strict lockdown in place to check the spread of infection. The present survey was conducted during Unlock-3 when the central as well as the state government have relaxed several restrictions.
However, the state government’s data released from time to time shows that there is a spike in infection in the urban hubs.