Antibodies against COVID-19 infection have been found in 29.1% of people in the latest sero-prevalence survey in the national capital, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said on Thursday.

Blood samples of 15,239 people were randomly collected in the August 1-7 survey from 11 districts.

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“It is a good sign that about 29% of people have recovered. But we have not reached herd immunity level yet, so about 70% people do not have antibodies and they can be infected,” Mr. Jain said while addressing a press conference. “If Delhi’s population is considered 2 crore, then about 60 lakh people have developed antibodies and they have recovered,” Mr. Jain said.

According to the findings of another sero survey, antibodies have been found in 27.7% of people in Punjab’s containment zones.

In Delhi, the South East district had the highest sero prevalence of 33%, while South West had the lowest of 16.3%.

Mr. Jain said in the first survey, which was done from June 27 to July 4, the sero prevalence was 22.8%. Over 22,000 blood samples were collected.

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Out of the total samples collected for the recent survey, 25% were from the age group of 5-17 years, 50% from 18-49 years, and 25% from the age group of 50 years and above. Also, people who were part of the first survey were not included in the second one.

Antibodies have been found in 28.3% of samples of the men and 32.2% of samples of women tested. The next such survey will begin from September 1.

“We will compare the data of the previous survey and this month’s survey and we will then analyse if more strategies need to be made and any approach needs to be changed. We are not slowing down on preparations that we have already done. In Europe, numbers have started rising again in some of the countries. Our country saw the highest rise in the cases at 69,000 cases. So, we cannot believe that corona is over in Delhi,” Mr. Jain said.

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Punjab survey

The Punjab survey findings, submitted to Chief Minister Amarinder Singh during a COVID-19 review meeting on Thursday, showed the prevalence of antibodies in containment zones to be highest at 40% in Amritsar district, followed by 35.6% in Ludhiana, 33.2% in Sahibzada Ajit Singh (SAS) Nagar, 19.2% in Patiala and 10.8% in Jalandhar.

This was Punjab’s first exclusive survey, and was conducted in five containment zones from August 1 to 17, in a systematically selected random sample population of 1,250. The earlier surveys were more generalised and were conducted by the State government in coordination with the Indian Council of Medical Research.