Seroprevalence survey 4.0: Over 70 % of people in AP have COVID antibodies

ICMR conducted the survey in 70 districts in 21 states between June 14 and July 6, including Krishna, Nellore, and Vizianagaram districts of Andhra Pradesh.

By Newsmeter Network  Published on  31 July 2021 9:00 AM GMT
Seroprevalence survey 4.0: Over 70 % of people in AP have COVID antibodies

Vijayawada: A new survey has revealed that 70 percent of people in Andhra Pradesh have developed antibodies against Covid-19. Conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the fourth round of the survey has revealed that 70% of the population are seropositive in Andhra Pradesh.

ICMR conducted the survey in 70 districts in 21 states between June 14 and July 6, including Krishna, Nellore, and Vizianagaram districts of Andhra Pradesh. The survey says that Madhya Pradesh leads the table with 79% seroprevalence, Kerala (44.4%) has the least antibodies among all the surveyed states, which may partly explain the growing infection numbers in Kerala. The all-India average stood at about 67%.

As part of the ICMR survey, 1,260 random blood samples were collected from various groups in Andhra Pradesh. As many as 885 people tested positive for the IgG antibodies, which means they got exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 sometime in the past. This is the highest ever seroprevalence found in any serosurvey conducted since the onset of the pandemic in March last year.

Andhra Pradesh health department's serosurvey conducted in April 2021 found that nearly 59% of the surveyed people developed antibodies against the dreaded virus. The urban population was found more exposed to the coronavirus than their rural counterparts.The earlier state-wide serosurvey conducted by the AP health department, in two phases, found that about 20 percent of the 5.4 crore population was exposed to the SARS-CoV-2.

Officials of the Health Department said that the population based serosurveys in representative samples are recommended to measure the prevalence of the infection in the community. "The sero surveys would give a peek into what percentage of the general population has been exposed and infected by the virus. It would help in risk management and give us the idea where containment efforts need to be strengthened," officials said.

COVID-19 under-reporting: TS missed 42 cases for every positive case reported

According to the data submitted by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) to the Parliament, Andhra Pradesh has an underreporting factor of 22, which means the state missed 22 COVID-19 cases for every positive case it reported. While Telangana has an underreporting factor of 42.

For every positive case reported in India, 33 positive cases were missed. This number is calculated as per the fourth sero-survey data released by the ICMR earlier last week. The survey was conducted in the months of June and July 2021 in 20 states and one Union Territory.

All states and one Union Territory that were part of the survey underreported COVID-19 cases. Kerala, which is currently reporting more than 50 per cent cases in the country, has actually done a fairly decent job when it comes to counting cases. The under-reporting factor for Kerala is 6. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh lead with 134 and 100, respectively. Apart from these two, four states - Madhya Pradesh (86), Jharkhand (70), Rajasthan (66), and Gujarat (59) – missed more than 50 cases for every case reported.


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