New Delhi: The National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) has approved the Indore administration’s proposal to conduct a sero-surveillance survey, which begins Tuesday.
According to the administration’s statement released Monday, 170 health workers will survey 85 wards of the city in Madhya Pradesh that was once a major coronavirus hotspot.
In a sero survey, blood serum of a group of individuals is tested to detect the presence of antibodies against an infection, which in this case is the SARS-CoV-2. This also helps identify individuals who were previously infected with the virus and have now recovered.
This survey in Indore is expected to last for about seven days and 7,000 samples are expected to be collected. Each team — which will also include lab technicians, nurses and student nurses — will collect 10-25 samples every day.
In his statement, District Collector Manish Singh said revenue officers, police personnel, sub-divisional magistrates (SDM), tehsildars, naib tehsildars and patwaris will all help the healthcare workers in their respective wards.
Indore has recorded 8,724 cases of Covid-19 and 333 deaths so far, and has conducted 1,57,063 tests till date.
Madhya Pradesh will be the fourth state to conduct a sero survey after Delhi, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.
Also read: Andhra Pradesh begins sero survey, will cover 4 districts in 6 days to collect 15,000 samples
Details of survey
According to Dr Jyoti Bindal, dean at the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (MGM) Medical College, a government hospital, and member of sero survey team, “The sample comprises of 33 per cent children, 33 per cent women and 33 per cent men.”
She added that children within the age bracket of 1-18 years have been included.
Officials told ThePrint this was done to ensure that the survey is “truly randomised in terms of age and gender”.
Health workers will collect two samples of blood, one from the vein, which will be stored in a capillary tube, and the other will be taken from a finger. The samples will be soaked onto a paper and preserved for the study.
Explaining the need for two samples, Dr Anita Mootha, head of the microbiology department at MGM and member of the state sero survey team, said, “If study concludes that level of antibodies in both blood samples is same, the need for collection of venous blood will be eliminated.”
She added, “This will help us a lot in conducting the survey in the other districts of the survey easily and cheaply.”
All the samples will be tested using the ELISA-based rapid antibody test. The Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) is designed specifically for screening large numbers of specimens at a time and is suitable for detecting the spread of the disease in a large population within a period.
Speaking to ThePrint, Additional Collector Abhay Bedekar said, “The team of 170 health workers has been trained twice. One training session was held three days back and the latest session was held today (Monday).”
He added, “We have given them a time of seven days but we believe that they will be able to finish the sample collection process within five days itself.”
A mapping of the district was also conducted and it was determined that every third sample from a person under the age of 18 will be collected. This means about 2,300 samples will be collected from children under the age of 18.
Also read: Why stopping ‘super-spreading’ events may be key to arresting the Covid pandemic
Govt hospital proposes testing blood donors for antibodies
The MGM Medical College has also submitted a proposal to conduct antibody tests on blood donors.
The hospital authorities claim that this will reduce the cost and human resources required for the survey since blood banks are already equipped with medical equipment and the donors come to the hospital voluntarily.
Dr Ashok Yadav, head of the transfusion medicine department at the hospital, told ThePrint, “This suggestion was noted down in the minutes of the meeting. As of now, we have 60-70 donors walking in. We can simply test them for Covid antibodies along with other diseases.”
While the proposal has been approved by the divisional commissioner and the principal secretary, in principle, it still awaits official approval from higher authorities.
Yadav explained that the process will involve taking the donors’ blood in two pilot tubes. According to the regular protocol, the blood is already checked for several diseases like HIV, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, malaria and syphilis — a test for Covid antibodies will be added to the list.
“Once we know that the person has antibodies we may start calling them for plasma donation as well,” he said.
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