CHANDIGARH: The city will start its first serological survey by next week.
Premier medical institute PGI will conduct it to know the extent of antibodies developed due to any recent or old Covid infection in children.
“This will be for paediatric group.
It will be a unique serological survey, where the focus will be on children between the age of 2 and18 years,” said Prof Jagat Ram, director, PGI.
“We are working on the modalities like ethical clearance, logistics, planning in urban, rural and slum areas.
The sample size will be 2,400-2,500,” he added.
Blood samples will be taken for immunoglobulin G (IgG) based test.
The survey will give some estimate of how many children have been infected and if they have developed any antibodies against the virus.
Concerns abound that a third wave of the pandemic would hit the children largely on the presumption that they would not be vaccinated compared to adults.
“Children have not been vaccinated, so they have not developed any antibodies due to the vaccines.
The survey will be exclusively based on natural antibodies developed due to infection only,” said the PGI director.
One of the limitations of serological survey after the second wave is that most have been vaccinated and some have been infected or are asymptomatic.
Taking children in this study will overcome the limitation and allow researchers to understand natural antibodies developed after infection.
The study will be conducted for a month.
“It will help us to know how many children are likely to be infected in the third wave as we will have a database.
This will prepare the city for the third wave,” said the director.