The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) is set to conduct a sero-surveillance study in all 11 districts of Delhi focusing on as many as 20,000 households on a random basis including individuals below 18 years of age. The survey is expected to start by this week in the national capital.
A central government panel which was constituted on the directions of the Union Home Minister Amit Shah has recommended complete sero-surveillance in the city to detect the trend of COVID-19 infection in the population of Delhi.
"It is a population proportion based sero-survey which we are going to start by Thursday or Friday. The result of the sero-survey will let us know how much of the Delhi population has been exposed to the virus and whether they have developed immunity against COVID19," a senior government official informed .
Recently, a Delhi government panel had projected the surge of at least one lakh cases by June end. It also projected five lakh cases in the city by the end of July.
"ICMR's sero-survey already reported 9-10 per cent of the prevalence of coronavirus in the South-East district where COVID-19 cases were in large numbers. The survey in 11 districts of Delhi includes -- South-East, Central, North, South, North-East, West, Shahdara, East, New Delhi, North-West, South-West -- have containment zones and positive COVID-19 cases."
The survey will involve the collection of blood samples from selected individuals. Authorities are planning to use CLIA kits to evaluate the sample to detect the presence of antibodies.
"Our strategy is to conduct this sero-survey is almost complete. We are finalising it," said the official.
NCDC will conduct the survey in collaboration with the state health department and under the close monitoring of the Central government.
Till date, Delhi has reported about 59,746 COVID19 cases and the virus has claimed atleast 2,175 lives.
According to the union health ministry, the death toll has touched 13,699 while the number of positive cases rose to 4,25,282 on Monday.
( With inputs from ANI )