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If Delhi’s population is around 2 crore, already 47 lakh people have been affected by Coronavirus according to sero survey.

About 23.5 % of total samples which were tested to assess the true spread of COVID-19 IN Delhi were found to have antibodies against coronavirus or any past history of infection.

Nearly 47lakh people may have been already contracted with the virus, given the population of Delhi is 2 crore. This also implies that 1 in every 4 in Delhi have already had the infection by the first week of July.

Till July 10, as per the official cumulative figure, only 109,000 cases were reported which is less than 0.5% of the actual cases.

Dr. Sujeet k Singh, Director of National Center for Disease Control, who was the head of the sero survey, said to a press briefing that the efficiency of the testing kit used for the sero survey was 92%.

The highest positivity of 27.87% was found in New Delhi district, the lowest, 12.95% was seen in south-west district. In a nut shell, there are 8 out of 11 districts with more than 20% of the population infected.

He also said that their team however could not conclusively say that Delhi has crossed the peak of infections.

The sero survey was carried out across 21,387 samples and was carried out on all age groups.

The Centre has said that the team has carried out multi-stage sample study between June 27 and July 10. The blood samples were collected from the individuals and were tested for antibodies using ELISA approved by Indian Council of Medical Research.

According to Government, this sero survey was the biggest study conducted in the country using ELISA testing.

As the antibodies appear three weeks after the infection, those who have found positive for antibodies in the survey might have exposed to the virus by mid-June or earlier.

This survey also signals that even more number of people could have been affected by the coronavirus till now.

Virologist Dr. Shahid has said that Delhi has already seen 3,663 infection deaths so far and the fatality rate in Delhi turned out to be 0.08% which matches the seropositivity rate of 0.73%.

Experts from ICMR say that Delhi is among the highest world wide and goes in line with hardest-hit cities like New York and Stockholm.

The health ministry on the other hand said that the sero prevalence rate below 25% can be attributed to the proactive efforts towards imposing a lockdown in the state.

By Gayatri Yellayi