Coronavirus: Fear over India’s huge hidden infection rate

India’s infections are to pass two million this week as new figures indicate the outbreak is far greater than official numbers suggest.

India’s coronavirus infections are to reach more than two million this week as new figures indicate the true scale of the outbreak is far greater than official numbers suggest.

The country recorded more than 50,000 new cases for the seventh day in a row on Wednesday, carrying the total caseload beyond 1.9 million. The national death passed 40,700 on Thursday afternoon.

The US and Brazil have higher total caseloads but India has emerged in recent days as the country with the fastest growing infection rate in the world. The Bloomberg Coronavirus Tracker said last week infections had risen by 20 per cent in a week. India passed a million cases on July 17.

Two recent studies have suggested that the true tally is far higher. A survey of slum dwellers in Mumbai published last week reported that more than half had been infected by the virus. Blood tests by the city’s officials on ­almost 7000 randomly selected people found that 57 per cent of slum dwellers had coronavirus antibodies.

About 40 per cent of the 20 million people in Mumbai live in slums. The city was India’s hardest hit in the early days of the crisis and has reported 120,000 infections.

The appearance of COVID-19 in April spread terror through the sprawling region of Dharavi, one of the largest slums in Asia, where a million people live crammed into an area spanning less than a square mile. Case numbers and deaths did not explode as feared, however.

The local officials were praised by the World Health ­Organisation last month for their “aggressive action” fighting the virus in an area with poor sanitation and where social distancing was all but impossible.

The recent survey suggested that asymptomatic cases were “likely to be a high proportion of all infections”.

Another recent study in Delhi suggested that almost a quarter of the capital’s 29 million people might have had the disease. A random sample of 20,000 Delhi residents found that 23.4 per cent had coronavirus antibodies. Most had no idea they had contracted the virus. If those results were replicated, it would equate to ­almost 6.8 million infections in Delhi alone, far exceeding the 4.8 million cases in the US, ­officially the worst-hit country.

From the outset India’s testing regime has raised speculation that the scale of the outbreak might never be known. The system has been improved since the early days of the pandemic, when only five people per million were tested. The health ministry said on Wednesday that more than 15,000 people per million were being tested, a figure that still lags far behind other world powers.

Indian officials have tried to reassure the nation, pointing to a steadily falling mortality rate of just over 2 per cent. That is calculated as a proportion of total cases, however, again suggesting the true figure is higher since most people die without medical attention.

Several Indian states and local officials have been accused of covering up their infection rates and death tolls to save face, refusing to test hospital patients or the dead, even on coronavirus wards. Most Indians die at home, suggesting that the majority of India’s deaths from COVID-19 have gone unreported.

The Times