54% people in Hyderabad have antibodies against Covid

Hyderabad, March 4 : Around 54 per cent of people in Hyderabad have antibodies against Coronavirus, reveals a joint survey by CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) and Bharat Biotech.
The joint effort estimated the seroprevalence of antibodies against the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in the city.
This study of around 9,000 samples, finds that around 54 per cent of Hyderabadis show antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, indicating prior exposure to the coronavirus.
“This study brings a comprehensive perspective of potentially protective immune response against the coronavirus in the city’s population. The data indicates that the population of Hyderabad might be slowly moving towards herd immunity, which will be certainly accelerated by the ongoing vaccination effort,” Dr Rakesh Mishra, Director, CCMB told a news conference.
Scientists checked for antibodies against the virus in people across 30 wards of the city. At least 300 people, from each ward, all of them older than 10 years of age, were tested.
Most of the wards showed a similarly uniform range of seroprevalence, from 50-60 per cent. However, a few wards showed as much as 70 per cent or as low as 30 per cent as well.