The second national sero-survey have been released by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
They are conducted by drawing blood samples and checking for a specific class of antibodies called IgG that appear within two weeks of an infection.
Because, it is yet unclear how long antibodies detectably persist in the body, their presence only indicates past exposure to — and not presence of — the virus.
Highlights
Around 7% of India’s adult population may have been exposed to the novel coronavirus till the last fortnight of August.
During the first survey, it emerged that there were 82-130 infections for every confirmed COVID-19 positive case that now dropped to 26-32 infections.
The country wide prevalence of the virus was similar to that seen in the United States, which was around 9.3%.
Brazil and Spain had a prevalence of 2.8% and 4.6%.