Explained | What Is Sero Survey? How It Can Help Delhi Combat Coronavirus

Sero Survey will enable the government to calculate the proportion of population that is exposed to the Coronavirus infection.

Through Sero Survey, an overall assessment of Covid-19 infection will be done. (Image: AFP)

New Delhi: The national capital has surpassed Tamil Nadu and is now in second place in terms of worst-affected states by Coronavirus. With 59,744 total cases and 2,175 fatalities so far, Delhi is poised to overtake Mumbai as the new COVID-19 capital in India. In the wake of increasing numbers, the Delhi and Central governments on Sunday chaired a high-level meeting to revise their key-strategies on making contact tracing more robust and further strengthening of medical services in order to combat the deadly Coronavirus in severely impacted areas. As discussed in the review session, Union Home Minister and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced that the mapping of containment zones in Delhi would be done again, and a close watch will be kept on activities inside such areas. In a fresh order, it directed all district magistrates to ensure that the contact tracing of all infected persons in Delhi is done with the help of Aarogya Setu App and the daily reported cases of Coronavirus are verified within 24 hours. The administration has been asked to scale up their operations by constituting additional surveillance teams if needed. Moreover, MHA has planned to conduct a serological survey in all of Delhi from 27 June to 10 July to map out the actual proportion of spread of the virus. As per the reports, the survey will carry out sample testing of over 20,000 persons. Through this, an overall assessment of Covid-19 infection will be done and a comprehensive strategy will be decided based on findings of the survey. What is Sero Survey? In a Sero Survey, blood samples of people are collected to test for the presence of antibodies specific to a pathogen. The tests are carried out using a testing kit, "COVID Kavach Elisa" developed by the National Institute of Virology under the ICMR which the agency claims can detect the presence of even low levels of antibodies against novel Coronavirus almost accurately. It is meant to test for IgG antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 that normally appear 14 days after the infection and continue to be present in the blood serum for months. How can Sero Survey help Delhi to combat Coronavirus? Although the state government has not declared Delhi to be under the grip of community transmission, the manner in which the positive cases of Coronavirus are constantly hovering on daily basis, the possibility can not be ruled out. To check the prevalence of community transmission, Ministry of Home Affairs and Delhi government has agreed upon conducting the mega survey. This will enable the government to calculate the proportion of population that is exposed to the Coronavirus infection. For the same, the administration will carry out the sample testing of 20,000 people across all districts of the national capital. This will help in the comprehensive assessment of the spread of infection in Delhi and will help draw up a comprehensive strategy.