Sero prevalence study carried out among healthcare workers of Kashmir has revealed only 27 percent of them have antibodies against COVID19, the rest susceptible to getting infected with COVID19 in absence of a vaccine.
The department of Preventive and Community Medicine of Government Medical College Srinagar collected blood samples of health care workers last month to assess how many of them have already been exposed to COVID19 infection. The exercise was carried out in the run up to the vaccination drive started on 16 January in J&K and across India.
The survey covered 2013 health workers and was meant to assess the significance of vaccination in this high risk group.
Prof S Saleem Khan, head department of SPM said that the results of survey underlined the importance of vaccination in health workers. He said that 73 percent of the HCW had no antibodies against the respiratory virus and this made them prone to getting infected. “The pandemic continues to take lives and health workers are at highest risk,” he said.
Prof Khan said the “reluctance” among a section of health workers regarding vaccination was a dangerous trend. “Healthcare providers should definitely go for COVID-19 vaccination as the majority among them was still susceptible to the infection,” he said.
“There is some reluctance among healthcare providers, but no severe or serious adverse events following immunization (AEFI) has been reported among thousands of healthcare workers who received the vaccines in Jammu and Kashmir in the last few weeks.”
“The vaccine not only protects the recipient but shall facilitate to achieve the herd immunity against COVID-19,” Khan said.
In the past 22 days, since the vaccination drive was started in J&K, over 49,000 beneficiaries have received the vaccine. This number includes frontline workers other than healthcare workers. Vaccination of other frontline workers started on 04 February across India.
Earlier, in November 2020, analysis of 6230 blood samples taken from across Kashmir revealed 38.8 percent had Immunoglobulin-Gamma (Ig-G) antibodies against COVID19. Data extrapolation shows 2.6 million in Kashmir division may have been infected with SARS-CoV2 and have recovered.
Prof Khan said that the sero-prevalence in health workers was lower than that found in masses.
Samples had been taken from 10 hospitals of Kashmir division in collaboration with Directorate of Health Services Kashmir and JK National Health Mission.