1 out of 4 Indians could have been infected with COVID-19: Lab head

The head of a leading private laboratory in India has stated that at least one in every four Indians may have been infected with the novel coronavirus, indicating that the numbers are, in fact, much higher than the official government figures.

The head of Thyrocare, Dr. A. Velumani has mentioned that his company conducted nearly 2,70,000 antibody tests, of which 26 percent people were detected with antibodies, evident that they had already been exposed to the virus. “This is a much higher percentage than we had expected. The presence of antibodies is uniform across all age groups, including children,” he reportedly stated. Velumani also added that if the current trend continues, the percentage of India’s population having antibodies may reach 40% by the end of December. Additionally, the second serological survey which was conducted between 1-7 August shows that 29.1% of people have developed antibodies against COVID-19. A total of 15,000 samples were collected during the survey, according to Delhi’s Health Minister Satyendra Jain.

COVID-19 has claimed the lives of more than 7,91,025 people and infected over 22,582,540 people across the world. The virus was first identified in Wuhan, Hubei Province, in China. As the death toll and overall cases began rising rapidly across the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency and the outbreak has now been labelled a pandemic. India has recorded 28,36,925 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 53,866 deaths. Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have reported the highest number of cases in the country.