ICMR begins survey on COVID-19 in three Telangana districts

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) along with the National Institute of Nutrition has begun a district-level sero-surveillance in Telangana on COVID-19 community transmission.

The sero-surveillance refers to testing the presence or absence of specific substances in the bloodstream. The ICMR has chosen 30 villages 10 each from the three districts -- Jangaon, Kamareddy and Nalgonda in Telangana. And 40 adults including men and women will be covered for the study in each village. Around 24,000 samples are expected to be collected across the state, ICMR said.

The officials of ICMR and NIN also said that the survey will help for active case finding, testing and contact tracing. The samples collected in the four-day survey will be sent to the ICMR lab in Chennai.

The sero-surveillance will be held in 69 districts of 21 states in the country and Union Territories by the ICMR. Dr Hemalatha R, director of ICMR-NIN said that the survey will be also helpful to take appropriate containment measures for COVID-19.