Third phase of sero survey to begin in Bhubaneswar from today

BHUBANESWAR: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC) will jointly start the third phase of serological survey in Bhubaneswar from Friday. The survey, which will continue for three days, aims to know how many people of the capital city have developed antibodies against the coronavirus.

RMRC director Sanghamitra Pati said they would draw 1,500 samples from the community for the survey. “We will take a call soon on how many samples to draw from high-risk groups. It may be 800 or more,” she added.

The RMRC and the BMC have already conducted this survey twice in Bhubaneswar. The first phase of the survey was conducted between July 11 and July 28. In this round, 900 samples were drawn from the community and sero prevalence of 1.42 per cent was found. The second survey was conducted in the last week of August. Antibody prevalence in Bhubaneswar was 5.15 per cent.

“The government has decided to hold this survey in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack again. After Durga Puja, we will start the sero survey in Cuttack and Rayagada,” said Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra, additional chief secretary (health).

Mohapatra said the full report of the sero survey of Malkangiri would be out soon. The survey was conducted between October 6 and October 8. “Of the 1,700 samples, we have received the results of 600. The sero prevalence is about 40 per cent. The whole percentage will come after analysis of all samples,” he added.

The state government conducted this survey in Paralakhemundi in Gajapati district between September 16 and September 18. Around 65 per cent of Paralakhemundi's population was found to have developed antibodies against the coronavirus.

Besides, it conducted this survey in Puri, Berhampur, Baramba-Narasinghpur and Rourkela. The RMRC and the Rourkela Municipal Corporation (RMC) had conducted the sero survey in the first week of September. As many as 25 per cent of population was found to have antibodies against the coronavirus.

On August 13, the RMRC had announced the results of sero survey conducted in Berhampur in Ganjam district. Around one third of population of the Berhampur Municipal Corporation (BeMC) had developed antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus by then. The study, conducted between August 3 and August 7, stated that the overall community sero prevalence was 31.1 per cent.