The total tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country reached 11.17 million as of 8 a.m. today, with 16,838 new cases reported in the past 24 hours, as updated by the Health ministry.
The number of active cases increased by 2,906 in the past 24 hours, and the total number of active cases now stands at 176,319. So far, the virus has took away 157,548 lives, while 10.83 million people have fully recuperated.
City based scientific firms held a Sero-surveillance survey to determine the immunity status of the citizens. About 54% of the population in Hyderabad and Secunderabad within the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits have been reported to have developed antibodies against coronavirus.
The study organised in joint collaboration by the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) and Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) involves extracting a sample size of about 9,000 participants, all of them older than 10 years. The result has shown that half the population has either been infected or exposed to Covid-19 in the past.
“This is the right time to go for vaccination when the infection transmission is weak and there are no cases of re-infection. This could take the antibodies prevalence among the population to 75-80% when the herd immunity may kick in,” affirmed CCMB Director Rakesh Mishra at a press meet on Thursday.