Covid-19: Odisha to conduct serosurvey in 12 districts

By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: The State authorities on Monday determined to conduct serosurvey in 12 districts to estimate the age-specific prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies within the basic inhabitants and healthcare staff.

The serological surveillance can be carried out by the Bhubaneswar-based Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC) in Sambalpur, Sundargarh, Jharsuguda, Keonjhar, Khurda, Puri, Balasore, Mayurbhanj, Jajpur, Kandhamal, Kalahandi and Nabarangpur districts in phases.

The serosurvey to search out out the publicity of kids and adolescents apart from the unvaccinated group to the pandemic in addition to assess the persistence of immunity among the many vaccinated group assumes significance as choices on opening of instructional establishments and concentrating on the final mile in immunisation have to be made.

“The first state-level survey after expansion of the vaccination programme is aimed at estimating the coverage of Covid vaccination among the community and healthcare workers. This would be a population-based, age-stratified and cross-sectional survey,” the order issued by the Health division said.

The individuals can be chosen from the neighborhood and healthcare staff from 12 districts chosen from the three geo-political divisions of the state. Households whose adults agree to supply knowledgeable consent for themselves and their youngsters can be included within the examine. 

A complete of 400 samples from the neighborhood (randomly) and 100 from the healthcare staff (purposively) can be collected from every district.

“We will select 10 clusters (wards in urban areas and villages in rural areas) from each district using population proportionate to size method. The survey teams would select four random starting points within each of the selected cluster. Samples will be collected from people, aged six years and above,” stated aresearcher at RMRC.

So far, the RMRC has undertaken 4 rounds of serological surveillance to evaluate the inhabitants tendencies of an infection and every spherical confirmed a steadily growing stage of neighborhood stage publicity to SARS-CoV-2.

The surveys haven’t solely helped formulate public well being coverage choices on the nationwide and state stage for prioritising sources, but in addition in planning for holding the pandemic and taking choices on imposition and withdrawal of lockdown restrictions.