GB Nagar starts sero-survey; to include children this time

The district health department on Friday started a serological survey in Gautam Budh Nagar to check the prevalence of antibodies against the Sars-cov-2 pathogen that causes the coronavirus (Covid-19) disease.

Though this is not the district’s first sero survey, it is for the first time in Noida that children (aged five to 17 years) will be included as a sample base, in anticipation of a third wave of Covid which experts say could affect minors.

In May and August last year, the Indian Council of Medical Research had conducted serosurveys, of which Gautam Budh Nagar was a part. However, district-wise results were not declared.

In September 2020, the UP health department had conducted a serological survey in 11 districts, including Ghaziabad. About one in five of the 16,000 people had presence of antibodies, the survey had shown.

As part of the current survey, many as 24 samples will be taken from 31 PSUS (primary sampling units) each, which have been identified across the district, including 18 urban and 13 rural areas. Each PSU is divided in four zones each and samples from two men, two women and two children are taken from each zone.

“A total of 744 samples will be taken, for which ten teams have been created. Each team comprises a medical official, an assistant, an Anganwadi worker and an ASHA worker. Equal number of men, women and children will be sampled. The survey will end Sunday. At end of each day, samples will be sent to a lab at LLRM Medical College, Meerut,” said Dr Deepak Ohri, chief medical officer.

Dr Amit Kumar, district public health expert and nodal officer for the survey, said it is a major task to convince people to give their samples.

“The Anganwadi and ASHA workers have to go door to door with consent forms to convince at least people, including men, women and parents of children, to give samples. After they are convinced, they are asked to come to a sample collection point the health team sets up in the locality,” said Dr Kumar.

He added before taking the sample, a questionnaire with 15 queries is to be filled by the participants, which includes their health history.

As many as 504 samples from 21 PSUS (primary sampling units) in the district were sent to Meerut by Saturday evening while 240 more will be taken Sunday.

Infectious diseases expert and secretary general, Organised Medicine Academic Guild (OMAG), Dr Ishwar Gilada, said sero-surveys would help the government formulate vaccine plans. “Figures of the government on Covid cases represent only 2% of the real extent of the virus’ penetration. Hence, serosurveys are important to know the real picture. After the results are out, the government should vaccinate areas where prevalence of antibodies is low, so they can develop antibodies to fight Covid-19,” he said.

Antibodies are immune molecules produced by the body to fight pathogens. The presence of antibodies in the blood typically suggests people infected with a virus would gain immunity for some period, said Dr Gilada.

“Antibodies after vaccination are not identified in the test conducted for the survey, as it only identifies antibodies developed after getting a Covid-19 infection. Hence, a person who may be vaccinated might show negative on the antibody test. However, it does not mean that they have not developed antibodies. A separate test called the neutralising antibody test or spike protein test is conducted to test the presence of antibodies developed after vaccination”, Dr Gilada said.