Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Sept 9: A pan-Kashmir cross-sectional sero-study carried out by the Government Medical College (GMC), Srinagar has shown that over 84 per cent of people in Kashmir have developed antibodies for COVID-19 infection.
GMC, Srinagar said that the study among the general population and various subsets of the population which include police personnel, healthcare workers, pregnant women by GMC, Srinagar.
It said that the study population among the general population in 10 districts of Kashmir shows 84.3% of our study population was positive for IgG-II (or the anti-spike protein) antibody which are produced after infection with SARS CoV -2 as well as after vaccination.
The numbers, GMC said, show that Srinagar and Anantnag have the highest seroprevalence in terms of IgG II (anti spike protein IgG antibody).
“The IgM antibody which is usually produced by recent infection with SARS Cov-2 (can rarely also be produced in recent vaccination). This antibody was positive in about 20.75 % of participants,” the GMC said.
The study was conducted in all 10 districts of Kashmir; data was collected in the month of July 2021 with each medical college mentoring two districts.
Within each district, 10 clusters were randomly selected and within each cluster, 40 samples were collected from individuals more than 7 years of age after obtaining proper informed consent for the study.
“Total samples processed and reported include 3586 samples from the general population with a mean age of 35.33 ±18 years. Further, 2077 samples have been processed and reported from among the police personals, HCW and antenatal women,” GMC said.
During the time of study in July 2021, it has been stated that a total of 20.3% of participants had received 2 doses of vaccination and the majority (79.25) had received none.
“However, since then the vaccination has scaled up and the seropositivity due to vaccination would have gone up also,” it said,
“We encourage that people shall follow COVID appropriate behaviour by using face masks, maintain social distancing, hand hygiene and more importantly shall go for full Vaccination against COVID which has been proved to be safe and effective against COVID,” Dr S. Muhammad Salim Khan, Professor and HOD Community Medicine Government College Srinagar and principal investigator of the study said.
He said that people cannot be complacent after the results as new variants could emerge and apprehend immune escape. “So we need to follow CAB SOPs and all those who haven’t gone for Vaccination yet shall do it urgently,” he said.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel