Following the completion of Sero-Survey across 69 districts of 21 states, including Dewas, Indore and Ujjain of Madhya Pradesh, to estimate the prevalence of COVID-19 in population, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has advised all states to start conducting the survey to know the prevalence of the deadly disease.
The Madhya Pradesh Health and Family Welfare Department is also examining ICMR's advice and a decision is expected after studying its feasibility.
“We are going through the advice of ICMR and its implementation. Decision over starting the survey will be taken after going through the same,” Principal secretary, health Faiz Ahamad Kidwai said.
The survey will help in preparing further strategies to curb the menace of the disease. In the survey, blood samples will be tested for detecting IgG antibodies using the ElISA method.
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“IgG antibodies generally start appearing after two weeks of onset of infection, once the individual has recovered after infection and lasts for several months. Therefore, the IgG test is not useful for detecting acute infection but indicates episode of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the past,” ICMR said in its release.
However, detection of IgG antibodies is useful in understanding the proportion of population exposed to SARS-CoV-2 infection including asymptomatic individuals. Depending upon the level of sero-prevalence of infection, appropriate public health interventions can be planned and implemented for prevention and control of the disease.
Earlier, ICMR had collected as many as 500 samples from five containment areas of city. The same was done in Ujjain, Dewas and other cities. According to experts, results of the survey will come in a week.
