SERO SURVEY IN 11 UP DISTRICTS FROM FRIDAY

LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh (UP) health and family welfare department will conduct its first serological survey from September 4 to 6 in eleven districts in the state to determine the prevalence of coronavirus infection among people. The districts include Meerut, Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Kaushambi, Prayagraj, Moradabad, Ghaziabad, Baghpat and Agra. Additional chief secretary, health and family welfare, Amit Mohan Prasad said the serological survey to be carried out by state health department in coordination with King George Medical University (KGMU) involves testing of blood serum of a group of individuals to determine presence of antibodies against the Sars-CoV-2 infection. The training programme of the health teams would commence from Tuesday (September 1). The second round of the training programme would be held in the eleven districts on September 3, Prasad said. In each district 1,080 blood samples will be collected from the selected group of the people, the samples will be sent to the KGMU labo ratory to determine the presence of the antibodies through enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test. “Our lab is ready for the serological survey testing. As soon as we start getting the samples, we will start testing,” said Dr Sudhir Singh, KGMU spokesperson. “We have been testing samples for Covid-19 on reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) machines and the lab has been functioning here in the microbiology department since March. The staff is trained and equipment ready,” Dr Singh said.