More than half of people living in the slums of Mumbai have had the coronavirus, according to a study commissioned by the city that raises new questions about India’s official case numbers.
India is already the third most affected country after the United States and Brazil, with almost 1.5 million cases, although experts have previously said that the lack of evidence could mean that the real figure is much higher.
Blood tests on 6,936 randomly selected people, carried out by Mumbai city authorities, found that 57% of slum dwellers and 16% of non-slum residents had antibodies against the virus, he said. the study released Tuesday.
Mumbai, where nearly 40% of the population lives in slums, has reported more than 110,000 infections and more than 6,000 deaths so far.
The city of 20 million people is home to the largest slum in India, Dharavi, where approximately one million people live. But deaths in the sprawling slum have not erupted, and local officials say their aggressive efforts to stop the spread of the virus have been effective.
The survey results suggested that asymptomatic infections “are likely to be a high proportion of all infections” and also indicated that the death rate from viruses is likely to be “very low,” according to the study.
The Mumbai survey came a week after a government-commissioned antibody study suggested that nearly a quarter of people in the capital New Delhi, where 20 million people live, have had the virus.
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