Thiruvananthapuram: The findings of the SERO supervision survey conducted by the State Health Department have given concerns because they have found that only 40.2% of children under 17 years have antibodies in the state.
This means that when schools reopened on November 1, around 60% of children going to school will be at risk.
The report, presented before the Assembly on Monday, has said that seropocity among children in the 5-17 age group is 40.2%.
Of the 1459 samples tested from the age group 5-17, 586 was found with antibodies.
However, among adult populations, over 18 years, Seroprevalence was 82.6%.
Among 4,429 samples collected from 14 districts, 3,659 people have been found to have antibodies.
Health Minister Veena George said it was a good sign for the country.
“This might be due to the high level of vaccination that occurs and also some cases may be caused by natural processes to get immunity,” he said.
It is interesting to note that the highest percentage of antibody presence has been found among coastal populations in the state.
This is 87.7% among coastal populations.
Of the 1,476 samples collected from this region, 1,294 samples had the presence of antibodies.
In urban slum populations, 85.3% have antibodies.
1,455 samples have antibodies of 1,706 samples collected.
Among the ethnic population above 18 years, 78.2% of people have antibodies.
Of the 1,521 samples collected from the tribal population, 1,189 had antibodies.
Among the antenatal women between the 18 and 49-year-old age group, the presence of antibodies was 65.4%.
Of the 2,274 samples collected from this group, 1,487 had antibodies.
George said this was the third sero survey conducted in the state held in September.
The idea is to find out the existence of antibodies among the population over 18 years in the state.
It was also done to find out whether children in the age group 5-17, had antibodies.
The fourth survey of the Indian Medical Research Council was conducted in June this year, found that Kerala had a 42.7% lowest seroprevalence compared to the national average of 67.6%.