PGIMER, Chandigarh is carrying out the COVID-19 serosurvey in children between 6-18 years of age

PGIMER, Chandigarh is carrying out the COVID-19 serosurvey in children between 6-18 years of age and the study is funded by the UT Administration. The survey was kick started on 24th June 2021 and is progressing at a very good pace as informed by Prof. Jagat Ram, Director, PGIMER. He said serosurvey among the paediatric population is of utmost importance since there is news that third wave can affect children.
Till date blood samples of 756 children had been collected for the serosurvey out of which 519 had tested positive for IgG antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 which means almost 69% of children in Chandigarh had been previously infected. Prof. Mini P Singh informed that the testing is being carried out using a high throughput CLIA machine available in the Department of Virology so that reports can be made available in a short span of time.
Prof. PVM Lakshmi is coordinating the field activity of the survey and informed that serosurvey teams have been divided into 4 groups each consisting of a field investigator and a laboratory technician who undertook household visits in different sectors, villages and slums and took blood samples after obtaining informed consent from the parents of the enrolled children. Out of all children enrolled till 4th of July, 2021, 396 samples were collected from households of Sector 22, Sector 24, Sector 36, Sector 56 and Sector 11 which showed positivity in 65% of samples (257 positive out of 396) and 360 samples were collected from households of villages, Burail, Maloya, Dhanas, Attawa and Khajeri which showed positivity of 73% (262 out of 360).
These are the interim results and the study aims to collect around 2700 samples in total which will provide a clearer picture of the actual percentage of children between 6-18 years of age who had been SARS-CoV-2 infected during first and second waves in Chandigarh.