About a quarter of India's 1.35 billion people might have contracted corona virus, suggesting that the actual burden of cases in India is already several times higher, said a source familiar with the government serological survey.
India has confirmed more than 1,07,00,000 cases of Covid-19, the highest number of cases outside the United States. But the poll was far more conservative than last week's poll, and showed that real cases from India may have exceeded 300 million people (30 crore).
The Indian Medical Research Council (ICMR), which conducts the
survey, said it would only share the results at a press conference on Thursday.
The source declined to reveal his identity before the official announcement.
It is not known how many people were involved in the latest
investigation.
After another blood test of more than 29,000 10-year-old patients
in August and September, ICMR concluded that every 15-year-old Indian has
antibodies to Covid-19, which jumped to one-sixth in densely populated urban
slums.
A study published this week by the Delhi government found that more
than half of Delhi's 20 million population might have contracted corona virus
till now.
The company's owner told Reuters last week that separate tests
conducted by diagnostic company Thyrocare Technology for more than 700,000
people across India showed that 55 percent of the population was actually
infected.
The World Health Organization says that at least 60 to 70 percent of the population needs immunity to break the transmission chain.
India reported 11,039 new cases on Wednesday. The death toll rose
by 110 to 154,596, a significant increase from a peak of almost 100,000 a day
in mid-September.
The government has described the world's largest vaccination
program, covering more than 4 million (40 rupees) of the population in 18 days,
with a goal of reaching 300 million (3 billion rupees) in August.
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