Post-Diwali celebrations, the BMC is likely to conduct another serosurvey to check exposure levels among citizens to the Covid-19-causing SARS-CoV-2 virus.
As per reports, this will be the sixth serosurvey conducted by the civic body since July 2020. The latest one in August found antibodies against coronavirus among 86% of those surveyed.
“We plan to conduct more surveys and believe it would be good to conduct one right after the Diwali festival,” BMC’s additional commissioner Suresh Kakani told TOI. He added that a final decision on the date is yet to be taken”.
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The fifth serosurvey conducted by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in Mumbai in August 2021 shows that 86.64 percent of the 8,674 people surveyed have antibodies against Covid-19. This is significantly higher than the third sero-surveillance conducted in March this year, which found 36.3 percent of those surveyed had antibodies against Covid-19.
Sero surveys are conducted to help the health officials assess the drop in antibody levels among the population. In July 2020, the results of the first serosurvey showed seroprevalence stood at 16 percent in non-slums. In August, a second survey, however, showed that seroprevalence rose marginally to 18 percent for non-slums. In March this year, seroprevalence in non-slum areas was 28.5 percent.
As per reports, antibodies are formed within a week to three weeks of infection, but their levels start declining after a few months of the infection.
The BMC has set October 31 as the deadline to vaccinate the adult population, 92.3 lakh with at least one shot of the Covid vaccine. “The next serosurvey will help us assess the effect of the vaccination in creating antibodies,” said Kakani.
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