Nearly one in four Delhi residents is Coronavirus infected: Sero-survey data

New Delhi : A serological survey of Delhi's population has shown that 23.48% residents have coronavirus antibodies, the Union health ministry said on Tuesday. The results have been estimated from a sample size of 20,000 people across Delhi's 11 districts. 

Based on the data it is expected that one in every four Delhi residents is infected with the coronavirus infection.

"The results of the sero-prevalence study show that on an average, across Delhi, the prevalence of IgG [Immunoglobulin G] antibodies is 23.48 % [22.86%, when adjusted for sensitivity and specificity of the tests]. The study also indicates that a large number of infected persons remain asymptomatic," the health ministry said in a statement.

The samples for the data were collected between June 27 and July 10. Since the samples were collected in June end and July starting, it is expected that in the mean time more people may have developed antibodies.

“This is suggestive of infection during mid-June, and since then, we have seen a decent increase in the number of cases. That means more people are exposed to the virus, and the disease prevalence could be higher,” said Jugal Kishore, head of the community medicine department of Safdarjung Hospital.

“Also, it wasn’t a door-to-door sample collection, that also means about 5% to 10% of the population probably was missed. If you factor in all these variables then the prevalence should easily be around 40%, which is good.”

He added, “It also means the susceptible population is going down, which suggests that the epidemic is moving downwards towards its end.”

Meanwhile, coronavirus cases in India are rising with a great pace. On Monday, over 40,000 new coronavirus cases were registered in the nation. The total count of coronavirus patients in India is above 1.5 million people.