ICMR so far said coronavirus has not reached the stage of community transmission.
A first countrywide random survey to check if the coronavirus has reached the community transmission stage will be undertaken by the Indian Council of Medical Research – the nodal body in the fight against the contagion. Community transmission is the third and final stage of the virus transmission, when it becomes impossible to detect the source of infection. Because the source cannot be located, the transmission is rampant.
The top medical body said it is conducting a community based sero-survey to estimate the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection. "The survey will begin this week and will be completed in 10 days," sources in the ICMR told NDTV.
The ICMR has so far maintained that the virus has not reached the stage of community transmission. The surveys it conducted were not random surveys, but conducted among patients admitted in hospitals with respiratory illnesses.
Data from one such survey in April showed that many of the patients contracted the virus without travelling abroad or having contacts with people with travel history.
The current survey will be conducted in 69 districts across 21 states. From each district, 400 samples will be collected – one from every household. This house-level cross-sectional survey will cover more than 24,000 adults.
The list of districts will include Chennai, Bengaluru Urban, Kolkata and Gautam Buddha Nagar near Delhi. The national capital, Mumbai and Pune are not part of the list.
Sources in the ICMR said the survey will be conducted through the ELISA Test ELISA test developed by the ICMR in collaboration with the National Institute of Virology, Pune.
In April, the ICMR had planned a similar survey across 80 districts, with 400 samples per district. The plan was to use the antibody kits imported from China, but the idea had to be dropped after the kits were said to be faulty.
The results of the survey will provide information about spread of SARS-CoV-2 infection in different parts of the country, the ICMR said today.