India / 23% of Ahmedabad's population have COVID-19 antibodies: Sero-survey

AHMEDABAD: A new sero-survey conducted by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation showed that 23.24 per cent of samples had antibodies against coronavirus, indicating that the city has not developed a herd immunity, an official said on Wednesday.

Another survey, conducted to find the prevalence of antibodies among those who have recovered from COVID-19, revealed that 40 percent of such people did not have the antibodies, he said.

Bhavin Solanki, Medical Officer, AMC, said 23.24 percent of 10,000 samples showed presence of antibodies, which was an increase of 5.6 percentage points over the sero-survey in July, which had found positivity of 17.68 per cent.

A sero-survey involves testing of blood serum to check the prevalence of antibodies against infection.

The latest findings indicate that the city is far from developing a herd immunity which requires 70-80 percent of population developing anti-bodies, Solanki said.

"The 5.6 per cent increase in positivity shows that multidimensional steps taken by the AMC have yielded results in controlling the spread of the virus," he said.

"23.24 per cent positivity shows that we are far from developing any herd immunity, for which the positivity should be 70-80 per cent," he said.

Gujarat's COVID-19 tally crossed the 99,000 mark and rose to 99,050 on Wednesday with addition of 1,305 new cases, state Health department said.

With 12 more patients succumbing to the infection, including six in Surat, the cumulative toll in the state went up to 3,048.

A total of 1,141 patients were discharged in the day, taking the count of recoveries to 80,054, the department said in a release.

The patient recovery rate in the state has reached 80.82 per cent, it said.

A total of 74,523 tests were conducted in the day, which comes at the rate of 1,146.50 tests per day per million population, the department said.

At 265, Surat reported the highest number of new cases in the state in the day, followed by Ahmedabad with 169 cases, the department said.

At 150, Jamnagar reported its highest intra-day surge in cases; 125 of these cases were recorded withing the limits of the municipal corporation, it said.

Rajkot and Vadodara also reported higher number of cases in the day, at 143 and 125, respectively.

Elsewhere, Bhavnagar reported 48 new cases, Gandhinagar 38, Panchmahal 34, Junagadh 30, Amreli 26, Mehsana 24, Bharuch 23, Morbi 20, Banaskantha 18, Kutch 17, Dahod and Gir Somnath 15 each, Valsad 14, Devbhumi Dwarka 13, Botad 12, Anand 11, Kheda, Narmada and Tapi 10 each, etc.

Of the 12 deaths, Surat reported six fatalities, Ahmedabad three, Gandhinagar two and Vadodara one, the department said.

The number of active cases in Gujarat now stands at 15,948.

Gujarat COVID-19 figures are as follows: Positive cases 99,050, new cases 1,305, deaths 3,048, discharged 80,054, active cases 15,948 and people tested so far 24,84,429.