COVID-19: Serological survey to begin in Delhi on Saturday

PTI, Jun 26, 2020, 1:35 PM IST

New Delhi: A serological survey to undertake a comprehensive analysis of COVID-19 in Delhi and prepare a broad strategy to combat the pandemic will be carried out in the national capital from Saturday, the Union home ministry said.

The announcement came a day after Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla reviewed the implementation of various decisions on the coronavirus-related situation in Delhi, which were taken on June 21 in a meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

“As per the directives of HM @AmitShah, the discussion was done on the serological survey in Delhi, which will be carried out jointly by NCDC and Delhi Government. The survey will begin from June 27, training of all the concerned survey teams was completed yesterday,” a home ministry spokesperson tweeted.

The home minister has already approved the combined use of ‘Aarogya Setu’ and ‘Itihaas’ apps as strong predictive tools for future detection of COVID-19 outbreaks in population clusters.

Training on the combined use of apps was imparted by National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) trainers to the district teams of the Delhi government on Thursday.

The meeting, chaired by Bhalla, was attended by Member Niti Aayog, Director AIIMS, Director General ICMR along with Delhi’s Chief Secretary and Health Secretary.

The home ministry had earlier said the serological survey will be done for entire Delhi between June 27-July 10 in which 20,000 people will be sample tested.

This will enable authorities to undertake a comprehensive analysis of COVID-19 in the city and then a broad strategy can be prepared to combat the pandemic in the national capital, a ministry statement had said.

Serology (antibody) tests are largely used for surveillance among the community. They can be used on people who have already been tested positive for the virus or even those who are asymptomatic and can reveal insights on immunity against coronavirus.