To ascertain the volume of immunity against COVID-19 being developed in people, a sero surveillance survey has started in Uttar Pradesh.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, while addressing a high-level meeting on Friday, said: “The samples will be collected for an assessment of the updated status of infection at different scales, including gender and age.”
The sero surveillance survey involves testing the blood serum of a group of individuals to determine the presence of antibodies against corona infection. It also reveals the percentage of pollution at high risk of infection. The sero survey to be carried out in rural and urban areas will continue till June 6 and the report is expected to be released by the end of this month.
While the first phase will be from June 4 to 6, the second phase will be from June 9 to 11. Three categories will be covered under this exercise — slum dwellers, general population and people who have tested positive for COVID-19.
Different teams have been constituted which will be led by a doctor and will have ANMs, ASHA workers and technicians for collecting blood samples. There are people who did not go for RT-PCR tests and could be asymptomatic. In this situation, sero surveys could be a significant step at this point in time. In the serological surveys, medical professionals look for IGG against COVID-19 which helps in finding who has developed immunity against the virus.
As per microbiologists, when infection attacks, the body combats it with a protective immune response producing an antibody, a kind of protein, called immunoglobulin (IG). But in the case of coronavirus infection, scientists look for IG-M and IG-G from the host of IGs present in the body. It is noteworthy that in September last, the Health department had also carried out sero surveys in 11 districts (Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Agra, Prayagraj, Ghaziabad, Meerut, Kaushambi, Baghpat and Moradabad). The result showed that 22.1 per cent of people had developed antibodies.