Ghaziabad: Health officers test +ve, sero-survey put off

GHAZIABAD: The sero-survey in 11 districts, including Ghaziabad, which was slated to start from Friday, has been postponed for a week after several senior health officers tested positive for Covid-19. Officials said the survey will now start from September 3-4.
The survey was initially supposed to start from August 26 with the help of King George’s Medical University. However, it was deferred to August 28.
Officials said the director-general of family welfare, Mithilesh Chaturvedi, who is also the director of communicable diseases, and some health officials at KGMU tested positive.
Dr Vikasendu Agrawal, state surveillance officer, Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme, said, “We have decided to start the survey in the first week of September. All logistics are in place and we can start the sample collection at a 24-hour notice.”
Other districts where the sero-survey is to be held are Kanpur City, Varanasi, Agra, Kaushambi, Prayagraj, Gorakhpur, Meerut, Moradabad, Lucknow and Baghpat. From Ghaziabad, 1,080 samples from 45 clusters are to be collected for the survey. Of 45 clusters, nine are in rural areas. The survey will be completed over five days. Along with Covid-19, people will also be checked for antibodies for hepatitis-B and hepatitis-C.
Meanwhile, the ICMR has completed its sero-survey in nine other UP districts -- Unnao, Auraiya, Bareilly, Amroha, Gautam Budh Nagar, Saharanpur, Gonda, Mau and Balrampur – and will send 3,600 samples to a Chennai-based lab for testing. An ICMR scientist said the report will be available in the next 10 days.