The third round of the Haryana government’s serosurvey has found seropositivity or the presence of antibodies in 78.1 per cent of the urban population and 75.1 per cent of the rural population in the state.
Overall, the seropositivity was found to be 76.3 per cent in the state in the Covid-19 serosurvey conducted in September with a sample size of 36,520. In the first round of serosurvey, the positivity rate was found to be eight per cent and in the second round of sero survey it was 14.8 per cent.
Releasing the survey report on Monday, the health minister Anil Vij said a positivity of 75.3 per cent men, 77.1 per cent women, 69.8 per cent children falling in the age group of six to nine years, 73.2 per cent of children ageing 10 to 17 years has been found in the serosurvey while positivity of 81.6 per cent has been found in vaccinated people and positivity of 75.5 per cent has been found in non-vaccinated people.
He said this serosurvey was done to ascertain whether the Covid antibodies have been developed due to the Covid-19 vaccination or naturally. He elaborated the antibodies developed after vaccination were identified by conducting Spike Protein Antibody Test.
Vij said in this round of the Sero Survey, the sample size was much larger as compared to the previous serosurveys conducted in the state with a sample size of 18,700 in the first round and 15,840 in the second round. The minister said this round of surveys was completely different from those conducted earlier as the sample size was very large this time and secondly all these samples were tested in the laboratory of District Civil Hospital, Panchkula.
Vij said Kurukshetra district witnessed the highest 85 per cent seropositivity and the lowest was 64.2 per cent in Faridabad. However, 14 per cent of samples were found to be inconclusive in Faridabad thus, Sero Survey will be conducted again in Faridabad.
Responding to a query, Vij said a positivity of 76 per cent in Haryana is comforting as the majority of people are protected from Corona. Regarding vaccination, he said that so far about 2.47 crore beneficiaries have been vaccinated in the state, in which about 1.74 crore beneficiaries have been administered the first dose and more than 73 lakh beneficiaries have been administered the second dose.
Vij said that the Central Government has approved the vaccine for children below 18 years of age and Haryana has started making arrangements in this regard. The additional chief secretary, health, Rajeev Arora said the result of this round of serosurvey is somewhat close to achieving herd immunity.