At least one in four people in India may have been infected with the coronavirus - a much higher number than official government figures suggest, the head of a leading private laboratory said.
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Dr A Velumani said an analysis of 270,000 antibody tests conducted by his company Thyrocare across India showed the presence of antibodies in an average of 26% of the people, indicating they had already been exposed to the coronavirus.
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"This is a much higher percentage than we had expected. The presence of antibodies is uniform across all age groups, including children," Velumani told Reuters.
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Thyrocare's findings are in line with government surveys done in Indian cities such as Mumbai, which showed that 57% of the population in its crowded slum areas had been exposed to the coronavirus.
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The Thyrocare survey covers paid and tested patients, covering 600 cities in India for the last seven weeks, Velumani added.
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If the current trend continues, the percentage of India's population having antibodies may reach 40% before the end of December.
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India currently has a total of 2.8 million cases, third only behind Brazil and the United States
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