Mumbai: BMC to take samples of healthcare, frontline workers for second phase of serosurvey

In a bid to check antibody levels amongst the healthcare and frontline workers, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is planning to conduct a sero survey from September 15 to October 6. More than 3000 samples will be collected from 93 places that include hospitals, medical health officers, Solid Waste Department and BEST workers across the city.

According to civic officials, many HCWs and FLWs had been infected and reinfected during the pandemic due to which their antibody levels had dropped. There is also a need to study the current anti body level why it happened despite taking the doses, including a booster.

Of the 3,094, 838 samples will be collected from the primary health setup across 24 wards, followed by Solid Waste Management workers (768 samples), BEST workers (768) and Medical Health Officers (720 samples).

"We are starting with the second phase of sero survey amongst HCWs and FLWs to understand the level of antibodies keeping in mind that they have taken the three doses of covid-19 vaccine," said an health officer.

Infectious diseases experts said the third wave, driven by the extremely transmissible Omicron, has affected a large proportion of the population. This wave was particularly notable for infection in a large number of healthcare workers, leading to disruptions in medical services.

“Practically the entire population is vaccinated and many, including health care workers have received their precautionary dose as well. Consequently, many have acquired hybrid immunity (natural infection plus vaccine induced immunity). Hence, the forthcoming sero survey of HCWs is likely to show a high sero positivity amongst HCWs,” he said.

The previous sero survey report which was carried out in February this year had shown that 99.93 per cent of the healthcare and frontline workers in Mumbai had high antibodies.