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What is sero-surveillance? How will it help in tracking COVID-19 infection?

Sero-surveillance: The Indian Council of Medical Research, ICMR has issued an advisory to all the states of India to conduct serosurvey to monitor the Coronavirus pandemic.

The Indian Council of Medical Research, ICMR has issued an advisory to all the states of India to conduct serosurvey to monitor the Coronavirus pandemic. The advisory further states that these tests can be carried out on frontline workers, medical professionals, vendors, police personnel, the staff of restaurants and grocery shops, etc. In addition to these, individuals residing in the containment zones and patients with chronic illness tuberculosis, HIV, etc. will also be covered. 
The survey will also be conducted on asymptomatic individuals and the previously infected COVID-19 hit patients that have now recovered. The survey will be conducted with the help of the ELISA test kit. 
What is sero-surveillance?
In serosurvey or sero-surveillance, testing of blood serum of a group of individuals is conducted to detect the presence of antibodies against the infection, in this case, SARS-CoV-2. This is done to identify the individuals who were previously been infected with the virus and have now recovered. 
Who will conduct the sero-surveillance?
The sero-surveillance will be conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in collaboration with the state health departments and recognized bodies. 
Why sero-surveillance is preferred?
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, GOI, has so far stated that there's no evidence of community transmission of the deadly coronavirus in India. The Ministry has stated that in some clusters large outbreaks have occurred in India but the cases have not exponentially risen as in the case of community transmission. 
Thus, this serosurvey is conducted so that the government agencies could track COVID-19 trends and it will also help in keeping a check on the community transmission of the virus. 

How the sero-surveillance will be conducted?

The serosurvey will consist of 10 health organizations from each district, out of which 6 organizations will be public and 4 organizations will be private. The serosurvey will have two groups-- low-risk population and high-risk population. 
The low-risk population group will consist of outpatient attendees, pregnant women, etc. while the high-risk population group will include healthcare workers and other frontline workers. 
A total of 50 samples per week and 200 samples per month will be collected from the low-risk population group while 100 samples per week and 400 samples per month will be collected from the high-risk population group. The combination of RT-PCR and ELISA test kits will be used in the serosurvey for the detection.
The top 10 cities of India (who have registered the highest number of COVID-19 cases) will be covered in this survey to monitor and track the community transmission in the country. Apart from this, the serosurvey will also be conducted in 60 Indian districts of 21 States and UTs. This survey will be classified into four stages-- zero, low, medium and high. 
The initial rounds of the survey will help in determining the prevalence of the COVID-19 infection while the other rounds will help in monitoring the trends of the virus in the community. The findings of the survey will also help the government in taking further decisions related to the lockdown. 

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