Recent antibody studies in India hint that 25% to 57% of its citizens in the country’s slums may have already had the Covid-19 virus. but only 35,000 is the official Death toll.
India has a population estimate of 1,400,000,000 or more than four times greater than the USA, which has had more than 140,000 Covid-19 attributed deaths.
A study released Tuesday that tested for coronavirus antibodies reported some 57 percent of people in Mumbai's teeming slums have had the infection—far more than official data suggests.
The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research's Ullas S. Kolthur, who was involved in carrying out the survey, said he was surprised by the results.
"At least in the slums, we think it is largely because social distancing wouldn't work simply because of the population density," Kolthur told AFP.
Last week a similar study indicated that almost a quarter of people in the capital, New Delhi, have had the virus—almost 40 times the official total.
There are, however, also doubts about the accuracy of such tests, since other coronaviruses—not just the novel COVID-19—may also produce antibodies that could give a false positive result.
The Mumbai survey also covered a relatively small sample of around 7,000 people.
India now has the third-highest number of cases in the world behind the United States and Brazil, although the official number of deaths in the South Asian nation is far lower.
