COVID-19 In Mumbai: BMC To Conduct Sero-survey Of Over 3000 Samples Till October 6

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Thursday, September 15, begun a sero survey to check on antibodies to fight COVID-19 among healthcare (HCW) and frontline workers (FCW).

More than 3000 samples will be collected from 93 places that include hospitals, medical health officers, Solid Waste Department and BEST employees across the city till October 6.

This move came as many HCws and FCWs had been infected and reinfected during the pandemic due to which their antibody levels had dropped.

Besides, there is also a need to study the current anti body level why it happened despite taking the doses, including a booster. It will also help us to understand the significance of the third dose of COVID-19 vaccine, an official stated.

Of the total 24 wards, the BMC aims to collect 838 samples from the primary health set-up, followed by solid waste management workers (768 samples), BEST workers (768) and medical health officers (720).

For those unversed, the previous sero survey report which was carried out in February this year had shown that 99.93 per cent of the healthcare and frontline workers in Mumbai had high antibodies.

On the other hand, the civic body on Thursday, September 15, released its 15th genome sequencing report, which showed that Omicron has been the dominating variant.

कोविड जनुकीय सूत्र निर्धारणांतर्गत १५ व्या फेरीतील चाचणीचे निष्कर्ष

एकूण २८८ नमुन्यांमध्ये सर्व नमुने ओमायक्रॉन या उपप्रकाराने बाधित

कोविड प्रतिबंधात्मक उपाययोजनांचे काटेकोरपणे पालन करण्याचे आवाहन pic.twitter.com/29glDS2COY

— माझी Mumbai, आपली BMC (@mybmc) September 16, 2022

Of the 288 swab samples taken between June 12 and September 1 for genome sequencing, 106 samples (37 per cent) had BA.2.75 variant, 96 (33 per cent) were of BA.2.75.1 variant and 60 (21 per cent) were found with BA. 2.75.2 variant.

Apart from this, six samples each were found with BA.5.2 and BJ.1 variants, four samples of BA 2.76 variant, three samples of BA 2 variant, two of BA.1 variant and one each of BA.2.10.4, BA.2.74, BA.5.1, BE.1 and BE.3 variants.

The report further said that while two patients out of 288 had not taken a single dose of the vaccine, 84 (29 per cent) had taken just one jab and 202 (70 per cent) had taken both doses.