NEW DELHI: A serological survey will begin in the national capital from Saturday to undertake a comprehensive analysis of coronavirus and prepare a broad strategy to combat the pandemic, Union Home Ministry officials said on Friday.
The move came a day after Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla chaired a meeting to review the implementation of decisions taken by the central government for improving the coronavirus situation in the city.
“As per the directives of HM @AmitShah, the discussion was done on the serological survey in Delhi, which will be carried out jointly by NCDC and Delhi Government. Survey will begin from June 27, training of all the concerned survey teams was completed yesterday,” a home ministry spokesperson tweeted.
Shah has already approved the combined use of Aarogya Setu and Itihaas apps as strong predictive tools for future detection of outbreaks in population clusters. Training on the combined use of apps was imparted by National Centre for Disease Control officials to the district teams of the Delhi government on Thursday.
“In the meeting, it was clearly noted that decisions were being implemented in a smooth and timely manner and a COVID response plan was finalised for Delhi. District level teams for COVID related tasks were also constituted,” the spokesperson tweeted.
Thursday’s meeting was attended by a member of the NITI Aayog, the director of AIIMS, the director general of the ICMR along with the Delhi chief secretary and the health secretary. On June 21, Shah had ordered fresh demarcation of containment zones and had asked the authorities to complete the new demarcation by June 26. He had ordered vigorous listing of households even outside containment zones.
Shah had asked the Delhi government to form district level teams by June 23 to assist the government in demarcating the new containment zones teams. He had said the serological survey will be done for entire Delhi between June 27 and July 10 in which 20,000 people will be sample tested.
What’s serology test?
Serology (anti-body) tests are largely used for surveillance among the community. They can be used on people who have already tested positive for the virus or even those who are asymptomatic and can reveal insights on immunity against the disease