COVID-19: BMC to conduct next serosurvey in February 2022

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said that it will conduct the next serosurvey in February 2022, to analyse the situation and act accordingly even as the number of COVID-19 cases are under control.

This development comes in the wake of completion of one year of the anti-coronavirus vaccination. The city will complete one year since the start of the vaccination programme on January 16.

A civic official stated that the corporation feels that multiple serosurveys after intervals will be important to see how much of the city’s population has antibodies as people contracted the virus even after taking both the doses of vaccines, and high-rises are still reporting more cases than other areas.

Earlier, BMC had stated that a sero-survey was likely to be conducted post-Diwali. 

Previously, five serosurveys were conducted since last year. The BMC had conducted the first and second serosurveys in July and August 2020, respectively, in three civic wards. While the third survey was conducted in March this year in 24 wards. The fourth serosurvey from May to June, in the pediatric age group, had shown about 50 per cent with antibodies against COVID-19.

Reports suggest that the first serosurvey showed 57 per cent population in slums had antibodies, which reduced to 45 per cent in the second survey in August 2020. Whereas, the third serosurvey had shown that 36.3 per cent of the population had antibodies against COVID-19.

Conducted between August 8 and September 9, Mumbai’s fifth serosurvey, depicted a prominent prevalence of antibodies, with 86.64% of the 8,000-plus citizens examined depicting disclosure to coronavirus, highlighted reports.

A serosurvey conducted in the city between April 1 and June 15 revealed that 51.18% of children between the age group of 1 to 18 years have developed antibodies against the coronavirus.

The serosurvey that has been commissioned by the BMC, NITI- Aayog and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) has shown that people in the 41-60 age group are the most exposed to the coronavirus in both slums and non-slums.

Also Read: BMC informs slum areas remain in focus even as sero survey indicates COVID-19 spread is declining