Telangana : In an work to gauge the spread of COVID-19 , The Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Nutrition and the Telangana government has begun the fourth round of serosurvey in Jangaon, Kamareddy, and Nalgonda districts of the state on Tuesday. While the last serosurvey was carried out last year in December 2020 on adolescents among the age group of 10-17 year old, the most recent one will incorporate children in the age group 6 to 9 years. The other two surveys prior to that took location in May and August in 2020. The surveys integrated healthcare workers as properly for more than 18 years of age. These serosurveys are carried out from time to time in order to study the extent of virus spread.
Although the quantity of coronavirus circumstances in Telangana is somewhat below handle, the study nevertheless holds the significance as overall health authorities have flagged possibility of third wave of COVID-19 infection which is most most likely to hit in 6-8 weeks if individuals fail to address to covid proper behaviour.
According to Dr A Laxmiah, who is the head of the Public Health Division at ICMR-NIN and the coordinator of the survey, this is the fourth in the serial cross-sectional surveys. The survey will cover about 400 subjects from 10 villages of every single of the 3 districts (Jangaon, Kamareddy, and Nalgonda) in the state. Also, one hundred healthcare workers from district hospitals and neighborhood overall health centers would be a aspect of this.
The sero-epidemiological research will aid identify the spread of COVID-19 at the neighborhood level. Dr R Hemalatha, Director, ICMR-NIN, in a statement stated that for this goal, we are actively working in collaboration with the Telangana government. We are pleased that the state overall health division and the district authorities have ensured that the surveillance requires location smoothly, she added.
The survey-based information will be collected inside two to 3 days. The IgG (ImmunoglobulinG) antibody-based seropositivity indicates the extent of infection spread in the population in basic. This will additional aid in understanding transmission trends of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the basic population and frontline workers. And this will additional aid kind the strengthening measures for the upcoming spike in COVID infections, the authorities stated.
The final results of the third round of serosurvey carried out by NIN in December last year recommended that 24.1 per cent of all samples collected had tested positive for antibodies, which implies one in just about every 4 individuals had contracted the virus currently. As per the final results of the 1st round of serosurvey in May 2020, the percentage of infection stood at .33 per cent. And with the second round of survey, which took location in August last year, the percentage of prevalence rose to 12.5 per cent.
On Wednesday, Telangana recorded 1, 175 new COVID-19 circumstances taking the tally to more than 6.16 lakh though the death toll stood at 3,586 with 10 fresh deaths.