India will hold a population based serosurvey for monitoring the prevalence of the coronavirus infection in the country.
The Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Centre for Disease Control will jointly hold the survey, according to the Health Ministry. The survey is in addition to the routine testing going on, it said.
The survey will be held in select districts at ten health facilities. Serosurvey is testing the blood serum in a group of individuals for the presence of antibodies against the virus. The Ministry said that 200 samples will be tested a week. The test will be held in outpatient attendees and pregnant women in the low low-risk population. It will test health workers who fall under the high-risk population.
The Ministry noted that the sample pooling results are only for surveillance purposes. This should not be used for diagnosis purpose, it said.
