The Central Government in association with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has planned for a serosurvey in 10 hotspot cities across the country, to track community transmission of the COVID-19 Novel Corona Virus! This would be India's first exercise to determine the prevalence of COVID-19 in worst affected areas and will use antibody kits developed by the National Institute of Virology. This serosurvey is all set to begin this week and it will be in addition to the surveillance exercise, which will test nearly 24,000 blood serum samples from 69 districts, across 21 states!

Centre to conduct serosurvey in 10 hotspot cities to track community transmission of COVID-19!

The cities like Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Jaipur, Indore, Surat and Thane, which have contributed to nearly 70% of India's total COVID cases, will be a part of this serosurvey! A serosurvey involves testing of blood samples in a population for a specific reason. In this case, it will involve testing serum for the presence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen that causes COVID-19! The presence of antibodies in someone's blood serum will mean that they have been exposed to the virus and recovered! As part of this serosurvey, ICMR will test 500 samples for antibodies. 50 serum samples would be collected from 10 randomly picked containment zones in every city and will amount to an overall total of 5000 samples in these cities!