By Krishna N. Das
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – About one in four of the 1.35 billion Indians may have been infected with the coronavirus, said a source with direct knowledge of a government serological survey, suggesting that the country’s actual number of cases was much higher than reported.
India confirmed 10.8 million COVID-19 infections, the largest anywhere outside the United States. But the survey, whose findings are much more conservative than last week’s toilet, indicates that India’s real cases may have exceeded 300 million.
The Indian Medical Research Council (ICMR), which conducted the research, said it would only disclose the findings at a news conference on Thursday. The source declined to be identified before the official announcement.
It was not clear how many people participated in the last survey.
After 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 number 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 20 million inhabitants may have been infected with the coronavirus.
Separate tests done on more than 700,000 people across India by diagnostics company Thyrocare Technologies showed that 55% of the population may have already been infected, his boss told Reuters last week.
The World Health Organization says that at least 60% to 70% of the population must have immunity to break the chain of transmission.
India reported 11,039 new cases on Wednesday. Deaths increased by 110 to 154,596. Infections and deaths have declined significantly since a peak in mid-September of almost 100,000 a day.
Its vaccination program, identified by the government as the largest in the world, has already covered more than 4 million people in 18 days, with a goal of reaching 300 million by August.
(Reporting by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
Originally published