Second round of sero survey begins in 3 districts of Telangana

Hyderabad: The second round of SARS Cov-2 sero-epidemiological survey commenced in three districts of Telangana.

NIN in association with the Telangana government has initiated this survey to monitor transmission of Covid infection in the general population as part of the nationwide survey undertaken by ICMR.

The baseline survey was conducted in the month of May 2020 in three districts including Jangaon, Kamareddy and Nalgonda. The data then showed only 2 positive cases in Jangaon (0.49%) and 1 in each in Kamareddy (0.25%) and Nalgonda (0.25%).

As per guidelines, 10 villages/wards were selected in each of these districts (total of 30 villages in three districts) and from each selected village 40 people (males and females) above 10 years of age are being randomly covered for the survey.

The State Health department and district authorities of the government are actively engaged in the survey process to ensure smooth operationalization of the house-to-house survey in 30 villages across three districts.

As part of the survey, blood samples of 1200 people are being collected, which will be sent to Chennai for testing

The population based sero-epidemiological study will help determine the trend in the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 infection and to determine the socio-demographic risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 infection. The findings will be useful to strengthen containment measures, NIN officials said.