But how many South Africans have actually had COVID-19?
South Africa has just come out of its fifth wave of COVID-19, and has officially recorded just over 4 million laboratory-confirmed cases, representing roughly 6.7% of the population. But how many people have actually had it?
South Africa has just come out of its fifth wave of COVID-19, and has officially recorded just over 4 million laboratory-confirmed cases, representing roughly 6.7% of the population. But how many people have actually had it?
Testing for COVID-19 antibodies can tell us this. Genesis Analytics was contracted by the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) to conduct the follow-up COVID-19 Healthcare Utilisation and Seroprevalence (HUTS) survey in collaboration with Epicentre Health Research.
The results showed that on average 97% of participants had COVID-19 antibodies, which is more than double the number from the first round of HUTS conducted at the end of the second wave. This data is key to informing public health strategies to mitigate the spread of new variants and severity of disease.