PGI plans large-scale serosurvey to check exposure of people to virus

Chandigarh, October 6

The Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) has planned to conduct a serosurvey on a large-scale to check the exposure of population to Covid.

PGI Director Prof Jagat Ram said, “We are at a very preliminary stage of the study, which is aimed at identifying seroprevalence of Covid at the community level and monitoring the transmission trends. It is too early to say anything. The study is ongoing to collate more evidence to reach a definite result on the subject.”

The preliminary data of the serosurvey conducted by the PGI to detect the prevalence of Covid-19 in Chandigarh has shown that 7.6 per cent of the tested samples had antibodies against the virus. However, the samples were collected from healthy volunteers who had expressed interest in Covishield vaccine trials going on at the institute and IgG seropositivity to SARS-CoV-2 was one of the exclusion criterions for the ongoing trial.

Prof Mini Singh from the Department of Virology, PGI, said, “It is important to carry out serosurvey to see what proportion of population has contracted the infection. Among the healthy population, the seropositivity was found to be only 7.6 per cent implying that most of the tricity population is still not exposed to the virus. However, it’s a preliminary data and larger systematic studies are on the way.” — TNS