Findings of serosurvey in containment zones in 10 cities communicated to states for further actions: ICMR

New Delhi, September 20

The findings of a serosurvey in dynamic containment zones in 10 cities to assess the extent of COVID-19 transmission have been communicated to the respective states for further action, the ICMR said on Sunday and added that the second round of a countrywide serosurvey has been successfully completed.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) comment comes following media reports of health researchers, apparently under instructions from senior ICMR officials, alleging that they were not allowed to include data from containment zones in 10 hotspot cities in the first national serosurvey study paper published recently.

“ICMR has been continuously communicating with the respective state authorities. The findings of the previous survey from the dynamic containment zones were communicated to the states for further action,” the apex health research body tweeted on Sunday.

“The second round of countrywide serosurvey led by ICMR has been successfully completed. The final phase analysis of the survey is now underway and will offer a comparison with the results of the first survey,” it said in an another tweet.

To further aid in developing state intervention plans, following the nationwide survey, states have also conducted their zone/city-specific surveys, the ICMR said.

According to media reports, 15 to 48 per cent of the populations sampled in containment zones in 10 hotspot cities had been exposed to the coronavirus infection, with Ahmedabad’s containment zone having the highest seropositivity level, several researchers involved in the survey said.

The findings of the first national serosurvey conducted by ICMR, published in the Indian Journal of Medical Research earlier this month, indicated that 0.73 per cent of adults in India were exposed to SARS-CoV-2, amounting to 6.4 million infections in total by early May. PTI