దేశంలో 6 కోట్ల మందికి ఇప్పటికే కరోనా, తాజా సిరో సర్వే || 6 crore Indians exposed to virus: Sero Survey Around 7% of India’s adult population may have been exposed to the coronavirus till the last fortnight of August, according to the second national sero-survey by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). This is roughly a 10-fold jump in numbers from the first sero-survey conducted by the Council across 70 districts in 21 States that sought to estimate the likely number of infected until early May. The people tested in the second survey were drawn from the same villages and clusters as the first, in which the scientists said that 0.73% of adults — or about 6.4 million — across the country were likely infected. No figures were shared on the likely number of infections by ICMR Director General, Dr Balram Bhargava, in his presentation on the sero-survey on Tuesday. But 7% of the population works out to about 62 million persons. Sero-surveys are conducted by drawing blood samples and checking for a specific class of antibodies called IgG that appear within two weeks of an infection. Because it is yet unclear how long antibodies to the coronavirus detectably persist in the body, their presence only indicates past exposure to — and not presence of — the virus. During the first survey, it emerged that there were 82-130 infections for every confirmed COVID-19 positive case. That number has now dropped to 26-32 infections, which according to Dr. Bhargava, was the result of ramped up testing and early case detection.
