Mumbai: The BMC has suggested that a majority of city residents might have developed required immunity against Covid-19, according to the fifth serosurvey report that will be released on Friday.
According to the serosurvey report, around 70 to 80 per cent of Mumbai’s population in all age groups (barring the paediatric population) have developed antibodies to fight the novel coronavirus.
Officials from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), however, have cautioned that if a new variant of the novel coronavirus emerged, people could get infected and it was important to follow all safety guidelines and norms.
For the survey, the BMC collected 8,000 samples, including from vaccinated as well as unvaccinated people from different age groups, from 24 wards across Mumbai. The survey was conducted in August, for which the civic body collected samples from laboratories as well as physical collection.
“The figure is close to what is suggested in reports, but we are fine-tuning the findings as we want it to be more inclusive. We are including samples of unvaccinated people along with those vaccinated, barring children of course because we’ve done a paediatric sero report earlier. We are working on releasing the fifth sero report by Friday evening. Samples have been taken from labs and physical sample collection has been done for this report,” officials said.
Data shows that Mumbai has administered at least one dose to 82 per cent of its total eligible population. The last serosurvey was conducted on paediatric population from May to June and showed that 50 per cent children had developed antibodies to fight the infection.
