Wuhan pneumonia (a novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19) is a global epidemic, with nearly 47 million cases diagnosed worldwide. India, the world’s second most populous country, accounts for 10% of the world’s diagnosed cases, but its mortality rate is less than 2%, the best in the world. Researchers in India have tried to find the answer, alleging that the country’s poor sanitation environment may be “to blame.
According to the BBC, the World Health Organization has said that clean water and good sanitation are key to warding off Wuhan pneumonia, but Indian scientists explain that perhaps poor sanitation and lack of clean drinking water contribute to the body’s resistance to the disease.
According to the report, millions of people in India live in poor conditions, lack access to clean water and food, breathe polluted air, and live in overcrowded slums that make them susceptible to non-communicable diseases such as cancer and diabetes. According to the Indian government, air pollution kills more than one million people in India each year.
But why is the death rate less than 2% in India, which has 10% of the world’s diagnosed cases? Perhaps because people in poor countries are exposed to various pathogens from an early age, they develop a stronger immune system that helps them fight Wuhan pneumonia, the researchers say.
The researchers support this idea with a paper that draws on a variety of data from 106 countries around the world, including 24 indicators of population density, prevalence, and environmental health. According to one of the authors, people living in poor, low-income countries appear to have a higher immune response to Wuhan pneumonia than those in high-income countries.
Krutika Kuppalli, an assistant professor of infectious diseases at the Medical University of South Carolina, takes a more conservative view, saying that the study is still not scientifically validated, and therefore it is heavily hypothesized. Kuppalli said, “It’s only been 10 months since the Wuhan pneumonia outbreak, and we need to learn more about this virus.”
India currently has a total of 8,230,711 confirmed cases and 122,651 deaths.
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