92% health workers, 95% policemen have COVID-19 antibodies: Sero prevalence Survey

Srinagar, Sep 10: According to the recent sero prevalence around 92 percent health care workers and 95 percent policemen have developed antibodies against Covid-19 infection.
The study also shows that vaccination rates among health care workers and cops were over 70 percent and 98 percent respectively.
An official said that the sero prevalence studies conducted across all districts of Kashmir in July this year also included two sub groups of health care providers and police personnel.
An official said that data and blood samples from 731 health care workers and 981 samples from police personnel were collected using customized Epicollect5 application while blood was testing by department of Biochemistry GMC Srinagar on Abbott Architect auto-analysers using chemiluminescent immunoassay technique.
“The sero prevalence among health care providers was 91.66 percent and at the time of sampling, 60.33 percent health care providers had taken both doses while another 19.15 percent had taken a single shot,” an official said, adding that the vaccination coverage has gone up since samples were taken.
“What’s more surprising is that 95.31 percent of police personnel have shown antibodies against SARS CoV-2 Infection and 90.01 percent police personnel had taken both jabs while another 19.15 percent had received single shot when data was collected in July this year, which must have scaled up to almost 100 percent by now for both doses,” an official said
Reportedly not a single police personnel has been admitted with COVID severity.
“The data from these two subsets of population is showing a promising trend against 84.3 percent sero positivity among the general population, as these two sub groups have been almost covered with full immunization against COVID,” an official said.
“These figures encourage that all eligible persons shall get both jabs of COVID vaccination to prevent severity of disease and hospital admissions,” said Dr. S. Muhammad Salim Khan, Professor and HOD, Community Medicine Government College Srinagar and principal investigator of the study.
The study was conducted by Government Medical College Srinagar in collaboration with Community Medicine departments of SKIMS, SKIMS Medical College Srinagar, Government Medical College Anantnag and Government Medical College Baramulla with full support from directorate of health sciences Kashmir and J&K national health mission.
The samples were tested in bio-safety level-2 lab of department of Biochemistry GMC Srinagar while its department of community medicine was the central coordinating unit.