With 28,000 samples, 7th serosurvey in Delhi to be largest exercise: Jain

In total 28,000 samples will be collected for the seventh Covid serosurvey, making it the largest exercise in the national capital that seeks to determine the prevalence of antibodies among the populace, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said on Saturday.

The survey got underway on September 24. According to sources, vaccination history will be collected from the participants of the survey. A large segment of the city population has already received anti-coronavirus vaccine doses.

The previous survey was conducted a few months ago when Delhi was reeling under the brutal second wave of the pandemic.

Jain on Saturday told reporters that a total of 28,000 samples will be collected as part of the seventh round of the serological survey.

"Delhi has 272 municipal wards, plus eight under the Delhi Cantonment Board. From each of these wards, 100 samples will be collected. So, it will be by far the largest such exercise," he said.

The samples will be collected in a week. It will take another week to prepare the report, Jain added.

Delhi has a population of over 2 crore spread across 11 districts.

According to Delhi's vaccination bulletin issued on Friday, over 1.67 crore doses have been administered to date and it includes over 1.1 crore first doses and over 51 lakh second doses.

The fifth serosurvey had found that the prevalence of coronavirus antibodies was over 50 per cent. According to experts, herd immunity is said to have been developed in a population segment if 50-60 per cent are found to have anti-bodies in a serosurvey.

The first sero-prevalence survey conducted last year from June 27-July 10 by the Delhi government in association with the National Centre for Disease Control, had used 21,387 samples and found that around 23 per cent of the people surveyed had exposure to the novel coronavirus.

The exercise in August 2020 showed 29.1 per cent of people had coronavirus antibodies. In the surveys of September and October last year the figures stood at 25.1 per cent and 25.5 per cent respectively.

The exercises have been undertaken for a comprehensive assessment of the COVID-19 situation in Delhi and to formulate strategies based on its findings.