Coronavirus cases in India: a total of 11,039 new cases were registered on Wednesday (archive)
New Delhi:
About one in four of India’s 135 million people may have been infected with the coronavirus, said a source with direct knowledge of a government serosurvey, suggesting that the country’s actual case burden was many times higher. of what is reported.
India has confirmed 1.08 crore of COVID-19 infections, the highest number outside of the United States.
But the survey, whose findings are much more conservative than a private one last week, indicates that actual cases from India may have crossed 30 million rupees. The state Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), which conducted the survey, said it would only share the findings at a news conference Thursday.
The source declined to be identified before the official announcement. It was not immediately clear how many people participated in the latest survey.
Following another survey conducted in August and September with blood samples from more than 29,000 people over the age of 10, the ICMR concluded that one in 15 Indians had COVID-19 antibodies. The figure jumped to one in six in densely populated urban slums.
A survey released by the government of the capital New Delhi this week found that more than half of its two million residents may have been infected with the coronavirus.
Separate tests carried out on more than seven lakhs of people across India by diagnostic company Thyrocare Technologies showed that 55% of the population was already infected, its boss told Reuters last week.
The World Health Organization says that at least 60% to 70% of the population needs to have immunity to break the chain of transmission.
India reported 11,039 new cases on Wednesday. Deaths increased by 110 to 1,54,596.
Infections and deaths have dropped significantly from a mid-September peak of nearly 1,00,000 per day.
Its vaccination program, touted by the government as the largest in the world, has covered more than 40 lakh people in 18 days, with a goal of reaching Rs 30 million in August.
.
