Gurugram: The District Health Department is planning to hold the third leg of the serological survey in Gurugram starting from the third week of October. An exercise to assess the prevalence rate of COVID-19 in the community, in it, a total of 880 samples will be taken.
Among the 880 samples, 528 will be collected from rural areas and 352 from urban areas. According to health officials, both urban and rural areas will be divided into four clusters.
The major urban clusters selected for the third leg of Sero survey in Gurugram include Chauma, Khandsa, Naharpur and Rajendra Park. These clusters will be further divided into four sub clusters. There will be 22 samples taken from each major cluster and its sub clusters. Interestingly, three of the major urban hotspot areas that include Chandra Lok, Wazirabad and Laxman Vihar will not be covered in this serological survey. These three urban zones continue to report a high number of COVID-19 cases in Gurugram on a daily basis.
The rural areas from where the samples are expected to be collected include Dundahera, Chandu, Budhera, Rithoj, Dhani Rithoj, Nanwalki, Garhi Harsaru, Bhondsi, Kasan and Manesar. Samples in the age category of 40-60 will be the major focus of the sample survey for the health officials.
The data will be collected using GPS which will then be uploaded on Gurugram's health department's internal mobile application which will be linked with the data systems of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). To conduct the survey, the Gurugram Health Department has constituted 16 teams for each cluster. A time duration of three days has been set to complete the survey.
In the second leg of the Sero Survey conducted in August, the prevalence rate was found to be at 10.8 percent. Urban areas showed higher rates of prevalence with 18.5 percent while rural areas had a lower prevalence rate of 5.7 percent. High prevalence rate had been found among shop owners, migrant workers and health care workers. Areas in Gurugram where large number of sampled people had developed antibodies were Patel Nagar, Rathiwas, Sarai Alawardi, Palra, Sherpur, Bhorakalan, Inchhapuri, Daultabad, Badshahpur and Aklimpur
"We expect that more people who would be surveyed will have developed antibodies this time. We have all the technical support kits and have constituted the team to conduct the survey" said Dr. Virender Yadav Chief Medical Officer Gurugram Health Department.