International Journal of Infectious Diseases (Jul 2021)

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

  • Manoj V. Murhekar,
  • Tarun Bhatnagar,
  • Jeromie Wesley Vivian Thangaraj,
  • V. Saravanakumar,
  • Muthusamy Santhosh Kumar,
  • Sriram Selvaraju,
  • Kiran Rade,
  • C.P. Girish Kumar,
  • R. Sabarinathan,
  • Alka Turuk,
  • Smita Asthana,
  • Rakesh Balachandar,
  • Sampada Dipak Bangar,
  • Avi Kumar Bansal,
  • Vishal Chopra,
  • Dasarathi Das,
  • Alok Kumar Deb,
  • Kangjam Rekha Devi,
  • Vikas Dhikav,
  • Gaurav Raj Dwivedi,
  • S. Muhammad Salim Khan,
  • M. Sunil Kumar,
  • Avula Laxmaiah,
  • Major Madhukar,
  • Amarendra Mahapatra,
  • Chethana Rangaraju,
  • Jyotirmayee Turuk,
  • Rajiv Yadav,
  • Rushikesh Andhalkar,
  • K. Arunraj,
  • Dinesh Kumar Bharadwaj,
  • Pravin Bharti,
  • Debdutta Bhattacharya,
  • Jyothi Bhat,
  • Ashrafjit S. Chahal,
  • Debjit Chakraborty,
  • Anshuman Chaudhury,
  • Hirawati Deval,
  • Sarang Dhatrak,
  • Rakesh Dayal,
  • D. Elantamilan,
  • Prathiksha Giridharan,
  • Inaamul Haq,
  • Ramesh Kumar Hudda,
  • Babu Jagjeevan,
  • Arshad Kalliath,
  • Srikanta Kanungo,
  • Nivethitha N. Krishnan,
  • Jaya Singh Kshatri,
  • Alok Kumar,
  • Niraj Kumar,
  • V.G. Vinoth Kumar,
  • G.G.J. Naga Lakshmi,
  • Ganesh Mehta,
  • Nandan Kumar Mishra,
  • Anindya Mitra,
  • K. Nagbhushanam,
  • Arlappa Nimmathota,
  • A.R. Nirmala,
  • Ashok Kumar Pandey,
  • Ganta Venkata Prasad,
  • Mariya Amin Qurieshi,
  • Sirasanambatti Devarajulu Reddy,
  • Aby Robinson,
  • Seema Sahay,
  • Rochak Saxena,
  • Krithikaa Sekar,
  • Vijay Kumar Shukla,
  • Hari Bhan Singh,
  • Prashant Kumar Singh,
  • Pushpendra Singh,
  • Rajeev Singh,
  • Nivetha Srinivasan,
  • Dantuluri Sheethal Varma,
  • Ankit Viramgami,
  • Vimith Cheruvathoor Wilson,
  • Surabhi Yadav,
  • Suresh Yadav,
  • Kamran Zaman,
  • Amit Chakrabarti,
  • Aparup Das,
  • R.S. Dhaliwal,
  • Shanta Dutta,
  • Rajni Kant,
  • A.M. Khan,
  • Kanwar Narain,
  • Somashekar Narasimhaiah,
  • Chandrasekaran Padmapriyadarshini,
  • Krishna Pandey,
  • Sanghamitra Pati,
  • Shripad Patil,
  • Hemalatha Rajkumar,
  • Tekumalla Ramarao,
  • Y.K. Sharma,
  • Shalini Singh,
  • Samiran Panda,
  • D.C.S. Reddy,
  • Balram Bhargava,
  • Tanu Anand,
  • Giridhara R. Babu,
  • Himanshu Chauhan,
  • Tanzin Dikid,
  • Raman R. Gangakhedkar,
  • Shashi Kant,
  • Sanket Kulkarni,
  • J.P. Muliyil,
  • Ravindra Mohan Pandey,
  • Swarup Sarkar,
  • Naman Shah,
  • Aakash Shrivastava,
  • Sujeet K. Singh,
  • Sanjay Zodpe,
  • Anusha Hindupur,
  • P.R. Asish,
  • M. Chellakumar,
  • D. Chokkalingam,
  • Sauvik Dasgupta,
  • M.M.E. Gowtham,
  • Annamma Jose,
  • K. Kalaiyarasi,
  • N.N. Karthik,
  • T. Karunakaran,
  • G. Kiruthika,
  • H. Dinesh Kumar,
  • S. Sarath Kumar,
  • M.P. Sarath Kumar,
  • E. Michaelraj,
  • Josephine Pradhan,
  • E.B. Arun Prasath,
  • D. Gladys Angelin Rachel,
  • Sudha Rani,
  • Amanda Rozario,
  • R. Sivakumar,
  • P. Gnana Soundari,
  • K. Sujeetha,
  • Arya Vinod

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 108
pp. 145 – 155

Abstract

Read online

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