6.4 million or more than 64 lakhs of Covid-19 cases were estimated in India in early May, the long-awaited results of the country’s first national serosurvey conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in the Indian Journal of Medical Research. , said.
The survey report said that 0.73% or 64,68,388 adults were exposed to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease.
The national serosurvey was conducted from May 11 to June 4 on 28,000 people, whose blood samples were tested for IgG antibodies using the Covid Kavach ELISA kit.
Furthermore, it was found that seropositivity was higher in the 18 to 45 year old group (43.3%), followed by the 46 to 60 year old group (39.5%). It was found to be the lowest among those over 60 years of age (17.2%).
“Our survey findings indicated that overall seroprevalence in India was low, with less than 1% of the adult population exposed to SARS-CoV-2 as of mid-May 2020,” the survey report said.
“The low prevalence observed in most districts indicates that India is in the initial phase of the epidemic and the majority of the Indian population is still susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection,” the report further emphasized.
Based on the overall seroprevalence of 0.73% and the reported number of Covid-19 cases, it was estimated that for every Covid-19 case confirmed by RT-PCR, there were 82-130 infections in India.
As part of the survey, a total of 30,283 households from 700 clusters in 70 districts were visited. Stratification of the districts as zero (15 districts), low (22), medium (16), and high (17) cases was performed based on the reported number of Covid-19 cases as of April 25.
India is currently the second most affected country after the United States with a total of 44,65,863 Covid-19 cases so far.
(With PTI inputs)
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