Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Tuesday gave the go-ahead for the second sero-survey, to be conducted across a larger sampling area, to assess the spread of Covid in the state.
The survey will be conducted in a random sample of 4800 persons among the general population in the 3rd week of November, with the results expected to be released by the end of the month.
At a virtual Covid review meeting, the Chief Minister agreed with health experts on the need to find the extent of spread of SARS CoV-2 outside the containment zones, in contrast with the first sero-survey that was conducted in five containment zones across Five districts. The first survey conducted in one containment zone each in Patiala, SAS Nagar, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar had found 27.8% sero-prevalence.
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The second survey will include a random sample of 120 clusters (60 villages and 60 urban wards) from 12 randomly selected districts, with 40 adults to be selected randomly from each cluster.
ELISA tests will be used to detect IG antibodies in the blood specimen for the survey.
The sampling scheme & survey method has been adapted from ICMR sero-survey protocol, the meeting was informed.