6th sero survey to focus on healthcare workers

Mumbai: The civic body is likely to start the sixth sero survey by the end of the month. The initial plans are to restrict this round of surveillance to healthcare and frontline workers. The sample size is likely to be more than 3000.

Suresh Kakani, BMC’s additional municipal commissioner said that this round of sero-surveillance will go beyond the usual study of prevalence of antibodies. “We have decided to check the life of antibodies too. Hence, the blood samples of participants would be checked three months apart to understand how long the protection lasts,” he said. Kakani added that they would collect the samples of doctors and nurses among health care workers, and that of policemen and staff from the solid waste management to represent frontliners.

A proposal has already been submitted to the ethics committee. Kakani said that they are planning to study almost 3000 samples to gauge the life of protection offered by vaccines. All essential workers who have been vaccinated with one or both and even booster doses will be a part of the survey, he said. The sample collection should start by the last week of February.