BHUBANESWAR: The Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC), Bhubaneswar is all set to carry out a statewide serological surveillance in Odisha from Monday.The largest serosurvey to be conducted in 12 districts will help estimate and compare age specific prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in the general population and healthcare workers. Unlike earlier surveys by the RMRC, only adults, children, aged below 18 years will be included in the study. It is the first state-level serosurvey after expansion of the vaccination programme.
The districts included in the survey are Khurda, Puri, Jajpur, Mayurbhanj and Balasore in central zone, Sambalpur, Jharsuguda, Keonjhar and Sundargarh in north and Kandhamal, Kalahandi and Nabarangpur in south zone.As decisions on opening of educational institutions, health authorities said it is crucial to ascertain the exposure of children, adolescents and the unvaccinated group to the pandemic as well as assess the persistence of immunity among the vaccinated group.
Additional Chief Secretary of Health PK Mohapatra has directed the collectors of the districts selected for the survey to provide all logistics and required human resources for facilitating collection of blood samples. Altogether 6,680 samples (1,200 from healthcare workers and 5,480 from community members) will be collected. It has been decided to collect samples from 1,644 children aged between six and 17 years, 3,836 adults and 1,200 healthcare workers.
A total 40 samples from the community and 100 from healthcare workers will be collected from 137 clusters distributed in three zones. Six teams including a supervisor, research assistant, phlebotomists and data entry operator have been deployed to carry out the survey simultaneously in each zone.