A team of experts from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in Bhubaneswar has started collecting samples of citizens in Jharkhand’s largest cities – Ranchi, Dhanbad and Jamshedpur – in a bid to find the prevalence of the Covid-19 virus among locals, officials from the health department said on Wednesday.
The fourth phase of sero survey is being conducted in 10 districts of Jharkhand in order to find out what percentage of the population living in these districts have been exposed to the mysterious virus and developed antibodies in reaction to the Covid-19 antigen, officials said.
The surveying team was in Garhwa, Hazaribag, West Singhbhum, Dumka and Khunti from February 4 to February 8, officials said, adding that at least 500 samples were collected from each of these districts. The surveyors landed in Ranchi on Tuesday for the second round of the survey, which will be conducted in Palamu, Bokaro, East Singhbhum, Dhanbad and Ranchi districts.
“The sero survey is underway to find the prevalence of the Covid-19 virus among locals in the various districts. So far, all sero surveys have concluded that there was no community transmission of the virus in Jharkhand,” said National Health Mission (NHM) Director Ravi Shankar Shukla.
The results of the third round of sero survey, conducted in December and released last week, showed that 17 per cent of those tested in Simdega had developed antibodies against the Covid-19 virus, while 15.87 per cent of those tested in Pakur have been exposed to the virus. The sero prevalence was 12.08 per cent in Latehar. Around 400 people were tested from each of these districts.
During the first phase of sero survey conducted in May and July last year, samples were collected from these three districts in the month of May. Later, in June, serum samples of people in Ranchi, Bokaro, Dhanbad, Dumka, East Singhbhum, Garhwa, Hazaribag, Khunti, Palamu and West Singhbhum were collected.
The first phase of the survey concluded that there was no community transmission of Covid-19 virus in state as only 0.63 per cent people in Jharkhand had developed antibodies after getting exposed to the Covid-19 virus. It found that sero prevalence in Jharkhand ranged from 0.43 per cent to 0.9 per cent, which according to the government, was “very low”, and indicative of exposure of Covid-19 virus to less than one person per 100.
The second phase of sero survey, conducted in August, indicated sero prevalence of 10 per cent in Pakur, 2.7 per cent in Latehar and 1.2 per cent in Simdega.