India’s COVID-19 cases have steadily decreased in the past week

India has one sixth of the world population and one sixth of the reported cases. However, it accounts for only 10 per cent of deaths. Research by Indian scientists suggests that poor sanitation, lack of clean water and unsanitary conditions may have actually saved many lives from COVID-19.

Mumbai (AsiaNews) – The number of new COVID-19 cases in India has declined for the seventh consecutive week, 12 per cent was recorded in the last week, compared to 16 per cent in the previous week.

On 13 August, India had 653,622 COVID-19 active cases, fewer than in following weeks. Since mid-August and September, the number of active cases exceeded 800,000.

However, by 26 October, the number of active cases dropped to 653,717, indicating a downward trend that continued in the last week. Yesterday, the total number was 570,458. After nearly three months, the number of active cases dropped below 600,000.

India is home to one sixth of the world population and one sixth of the reported cases. However, it accounts for only 10 per cent of the world's deaths from the virus and its death rate or case fatality rate (CFR), which measures deaths among patients with COVID-19, is less than 2 per cent, one of the lowest in the world.

Now, new research by Indian scientists suggests that poor sanitation, lack of clean water and unsanitary conditions may have actually saved many lives from COVID-19.

In their view, people living in low-middle-income countries may have been able to avoid severe forms of infection due to exposure to various pathogens since childhood, which gives them greater immunity to COVID-19.

Comparing available data for 106 countries on two dozen metrics such as population density, demographics, disease prevalence and quality of sanitation shows that more people died of COVID-19 in high-income countries.

(Nirmala Carvalho contributed to this article)

• india
• covid-19
• case fatality rate
• poor sanitation
• pathogens
• resilience