The Indian Council of Medical Research on Tuesday said it will begin antibody testing at the household-level to estimate the prevalence of ...
The Indian Council of Medical Research on Tuesday said it will begin antibody testing at the household-level to estimate the prevalence of Covid-19 infections among Indians. The survey will include 24,000 adults, distributed equally over four strata of districts that will be categorised on the basis of the spread of the infection.
The exercise will be done in collaboration with the Department of Health and Family Welfare, the Centre and the National Centre for Disease Control, the medical body said in an official statement. It will also get support from state health departments and key stakeholders, including the World Health Organization.
“This is a household-based survey of adults to look for presence of infection across the country in a systematic manner irrespective of reporting of cases currently,” ICMR researcher Dr Tarun Bhatnagar told The Indian Express. “It will look for presence of IgG antibodies that usually appear ten to fourteen days after infection,”
The survey would be conducted in 69 districts of 21 states and Union Territories, the medical body said. In each district, 400 random households in ten clusters will have one adult individual tested for Covid-19 antibodies in what is called a “sero survey”.
This test result will reveal if they have developed antibodies against the infection...
