Sero survey begins in Jawaharpur village by Mohali health department, 125 blood samples collected

Sero survey begins in Jawaharpur village by Mohali health department, 125 blood samples collected

Harshabab Sidhu
Nabaz-e-Punjab, Mohali, August 2:
With an aim to estimate the percentage of the population that could have developed antibodies against the novel coronavirus, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the Punjab Government has jointly started a two-day Serological (or sero) survey at nearby Jawaharpur village on Sunday. The survey is intended to detect whether the person being tested has developed antibodies against the coronavirus. Antibodies are proteins that are produced by the body’s immune system to fight external organisms like viruses that enter the body.The survey teams went from house to house in the village and took blood samples of 125 persons in a random manner on first day.
Mohali Civil Surgeon Dr Manjit Singh visited the spot and provided all possible assistance to the survey teams from ICMR. He said that the survey was being conducted by ICMR in five districts of Punjab including Mohali. He said that Serological surveys help to assess how widespread Covid-19 could have become in a community. “Since it is not possible to test everyone, it is not clear how many people in the population are infected, especially since most of the patients do not even show any symptoms of the disease. Detecting antibodies in random sets of people is, therefore, an indirect way of estimating the extent of the spread of the disease in a community.” said the Civil Surgeon.
It may be recalled that Jawaharpur had once emerged as the Hotspot of the district with a total of 46 cases of coronavirus infection. At present there are no positive cases in the village. All the patients have fully recovered. Dr Manjit Singh said that the district health department had already deputed its doctors and other staff to assist in carrying out the survey and the teams of the health department are giving full support to the ICMR teams in the survey work.