KATHMANDU, JULY 20

The Ministry of Health and Population is to study whether COVID-19 infection has spread at the community level.

The Epidemiology and Disease Control Division is to launch ‘sero prevalence survey’ to find out the number of people affected by the pandemic.

The nationwide survey will be supported by World Health Organisation, Division Director Dr Basudev Pandey said.

The Division, earlier, conducted coronavirus tests on 5,000 people through PCR method to trace the scale of infections at the community level.

Under the sero-survey, the Division will reach out to the community to collect blood samples for the test. The sero-survey involves the testing of blood serum of individuals to detect the history of prevalence of virus in the human body. So it is the serological test to check for the prevalence of antibody in human body to find whether a person has already been infected by COVID-19.

It may be noted that 97 per cent COVID-19 infected in the country are asymptotic. The sero-survey has to do with random sample collection and the Division will focus on areas reporting higher cases in all the seven provinces.

The Division’s senior public health office administrator Mahendradhwaj Adhikari said the survey launch had reached the final phase. Till date, 315,570 people have undergone PCR tests and 17,658 tested positive for the virus. The death toll from the virus has reached 40 in the country.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on July 21, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.