The national sero-surveillance being conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is going to be carried out  in the areas of Kandivali East and West, Deonar, Dharavi and Kurla-Sakinaka areas of Mumbai. 500 people are going to be selected randomly for the survey within the five clusters in Mumbai.

The ICMR is conducting the sero-surveillance in 60 districts of India including 10 hotspot cities and Mumbai is one of them. The target is to estimate and monitor the trend of sero-prevalence for SARS-CoV-2 infection in high burden cities.

According to the BMC, the objective of the survey is to estimate and monitor the trend of Sero-prevalence for COVID-19 infection in high burden cities. It will determine socio-demographic risk factors for the COVID-19 infection and help in understanding the geographical spread of the infection in the general population and hotspot cities. This will be a base-line survey and there will be subsequent rounds. As per ICMR guidelines, it will be conducted in 500 adults aged 18 years or more, and in five clusters identified randomly - Kandivali (East), Kandivali (West), Deonar, Dharavi and Kurla-Sakinaka.The survey will be conducted with the help of local medical officer and health staff along with ICMR-National Institute of Immuno-Haematology teams supported by the WHO teams. Survey teams will collect blood from each participant house hold. The detection of COVID-19 specific IgG antibodies which is a sign of exposure to the COVID-19 infection will also be performed in the survey.

"Detection of SARS CoV- 2 specific IgG antibodies are going to be performed. the event of antibodies may be a sign of exposure to COVID-19 infection. The knowledge gained will help to evolve guidelines to assist prevent and control the spread of infection in communities," Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officers said.

Maharashtra yesterday reported the highest number of COVID-19 deaths so far at 105, including 32 in Mumbai, taking the count of overall fatalities to 1,897. This is for the first time that Maharashtra has reported deaths in three digits. The number of cases spiked by 2,190 yesterday taking total tally to 56,948. However with a total of 17,918 patients were recovered and discharged, the number of active cases stands to 37,125.

Meanwhile,  the number of the discharged people is increasing and the recovery rate of COVID-19 patients in Maharashtra stands at 31.5 per cent.The doubling rate of COVID-19 cases also improved to 14.7 days from 11.5 in the last week in the state.