BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha government is planning to go for sero-prevalence study across districts and cities to generate ground-level data that will help formulate localised public health response measures.The decision has been taken after Centre advised all states to conduct sero-surveys in consultation with Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
Health department sources said the study will be conducted in phases in collaboration with the Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC). The Twin City of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack apart from Puri and a couple of coastal districts where the test positivity rate (TPR) is high will be covered in the immediate phase.
While the COVID antibody study has already been conducted in Ganjam, Koraput and Rayagada during the fourth round national sero survey, the drive in the rest of the districts will be conducted in the next couple of months. Director of Health Services Dr Bijay Mohapatra said the sero-prevalence study will be carried out first in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Puri to ascertain the exposure of the community to the virus.
"Despite the three-month long lockdown and weekend shutdown, the three cities have been recording the highest positive cases and high TPR. We are also planning to include some of the other coastal districts in this round. The mode of the survey and the priority districts will be finalised in consultation with RMRC soon," he added.
The sero-prevalence was 71 per cent (pc) in Ganjam, 63 per cent in Rayagada and 61.3 per cent in Koraput during June 16-21, up from 54 pc, 62 pc and 50 pc respectively during December last year. The three districts were part of 70 districts from 21 states where the national survey was conducted.
Stating that the national sero-survey by ICMR was designed to capture the extent of the spread of Covid infection at the national level and the results do not reflect the heterogeneity of sero-prevalence between districts, the Centre has advised states to conduct district-wise study. In the last sero-survey conducted in Bhubaneswar, the sero-prevalence was 50 pc in October last year and 46 pc in Cuttack in November last year.
The State recorded 1,437 more new cases in the last 24 hours, the lowest in the last 100 days. The test positivity rate also dropped below two pc for the second time in the last fortnight. Khurda district reported the highest 409 infections, followed by Cuttack (190), Puri (146) and Jagatsinghpur (86).
As many as 74,735 samples were tested, including 22,525 through RT-PCR bringing down the TPR to 1.92 pc. The active cases stood at 14,085. Death toll rose to 5,966 after 64 more fatalities were announced on Sunday.
The highest eight deaths each were from Khurda, Cuttack and Bhadrak, seven each from Puri and Sundargarh, four from Kendrapara and three each from Dhenkanal and Nayagarh.