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. 2021 Jul:108:145-155.
doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2021.05.040. Epub 2021 May 19.

SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence among the general population and healthcare workers in India, December 2020-January 2021

Manoj V Murhekar  1 , Tarun Bhatnagar  2 , Jeromie Wesley Vivian Thangaraj  2 , V Saravanakumar  2 , Muthusamy Santhosh Kumar  2 , Sriram Selvaraju  3 , Kiran Rade  4 , C P Girish Kumar  2 , R Sabarinathan  2 , Alka Turuk  5 , Smita Asthana  6 , Rakesh Balachandar  7 , Sampada Dipak Bangar  8 , Avi Kumar Bansal  9 , Vishal Chopra  10 , Dasarathi Das  11 , Alok Kumar Deb  12 , Kangjam Rekha Devi  13 , Vikas Dhikav  14 , Gaurav Raj Dwivedi  15 , S Muhammad Salim Khan  16 , M Sunil Kumar  17 , Avula Laxmaiah  18 , Major Madhukar  19 , Amarendra Mahapatra  11 , Chethana Rangaraju  20 , Jyotirmayee Turuk  11 , Rajiv Yadav  21 , Rushikesh Andhalkar  3 , K Arunraj  3 , Dinesh Kumar Bharadwaj  18 , Pravin Bharti  21 , Debdutta Bhattacharya  11 , Jyothi Bhat  21 , Ashrafjit S Chahal  10 , Debjit Chakraborty  12 , Anshuman Chaudhury  3 , Hirawati Deval  15 , Sarang Dhatrak  7 , Rakesh Dayal  22 , D Elantamilan  14 , Prathiksha Giridharan  3 , Inaamul Haq  16 , Ramesh Kumar Hudda  14 , Babu Jagjeevan  18 , Arshad Kalliath  17 , Srikanta Kanungo  11 , Nivethitha N Krishnan  3 , Jaya Singh Kshatri  11 , Alok Kumar  3 , Niraj Kumar  15 , V G Vinoth Kumar  3 , G G J Naga Lakshmi  23 , Ganesh Mehta  9 , Nandan Kumar Mishra  9 , Anindya Mitra  22 , K Nagbhushanam  3 , Arlappa Nimmathota  18 , A R Nirmala  20 , Ashok Kumar Pandey  15 , Ganta Venkata Prasad  23 , Mariya Amin Qurieshi  16 , Sirasanambatti Devarajulu Reddy  3 , Aby Robinson  3 , Seema Sahay  8 , Rochak Saxena  24 , Krithikaa Sekar  3 , Vijay Kumar Shukla  24 , Hari Bhan Singh  9 , Prashant Kumar Singh  6 , Pushpendra Singh  21 , Rajeev Singh  15 , Nivetha Srinivasan  3 , Dantuluri Sheethal Varma  23 , Ankit Viramgami  7 , Vimith Cheruvathoor Wilson  3 , Surabhi Yadav  3 , Suresh Yadav  14 , Kamran Zaman  15 , Amit Chakrabarti  7 , Aparup Das  21 , R S Dhaliwal  14 , Shanta Dutta  12 , Rajni Kant  15 , A M Khan  5 , Kanwar Narain  13 , Somashekar Narasimhaiah  20 , Chandrasekaran Padmapriyadarshini  3 , Krishna Pandey  19 , Sanghamitra Pati  11 , Shripad Patil  9 , Hemalatha Rajkumar  18 , Tekumalla Ramarao  23 , Y K Sharma  24 , Shalini Singh  6 , Samiran Panda  5 , D C S Reddy  25 , Balram Bhargava  5 ; ICMR Serosurveillance Group
Collaborators, Affiliations

SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence among the general population and healthcare workers in India, December 2020-January 2021

Manoj V Murhekar et al. Int J Infect Dis. 2021 Jul.

Abstract

Background: Earlier serosurveys in India revealed seroprevalence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) of 0.73% in May-June 2020 and 7.1% in August-September 2020. A third serosurvey was conducted between December 2020 and January 2021 to estimate the seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection among the general population and healthcare workers (HCWs) in India.

Methods: The third serosurvey was conducted in the same 70 districts as the first and second serosurveys. For each district, at least 400 individuals aged ≥10 years from the general population and 100 HCWs from subdistrict-level health facilities were enrolled. Serum samples from the general population were tested for the presence of immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies against the nucleocapsid (N) and spike (S1-RBD) proteins of SARS-CoV-2, whereas serum samples from HCWs were tested for anti-S1-RBD. Weighted seroprevalence adjusted for assay characteristics was estimated.

Results: Of the 28,598 serum samples from the general population, 4585 (16%) had IgG antibodies against the N protein, 6647 (23.2%) had IgG antibodies against the S1-RBD protein, and 7436 (26%) had IgG antibodies against either the N protein or the S1-RBD protein. Weighted and assay-characteristic-adjusted seroprevalence against either of the antibodies was 24.1% [95% confidence interval (CI) 23.0-25.3%]. Among 7385 HCWs, the seroprevalence of anti-S1-RBD IgG antibodies was 25.6% (95% CI 23.5-27.8%).

Conclusions: Nearly one in four individuals aged ≥10 years from the general population as well as HCWs in India had been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 by December 2020.

Keywords: COVID-19; IgG; India; SARS-CoV-2; Seroprevalence.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowchart of participant enrollment.
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