Poorest Slums In India Show Immunity Towards COVID-19
COVID-19 has dominated the whole year of 2020, currently standing with thirty-four million positive cases and one million deaths globally. India has been significantly impacted, leading them to the top three countries with the most cases of COVID-19. Currently, India has six point five million cases and one lakh deaths.
Due to COVID-19, several countries are vigorously researching the disease in order to find a novel vaccine. A recent study done in the slums of India suggests that individuals living in these areas demonstrate herd immunity to COVID-19. Herd immunity is when people from a community becomes resistant to a disease therefore tackling transmission of an infectious disease. The research team studied three major slums in India and found that over 57% of the population in these slums had antibodies for COVID-19 while only 16% of individual living in metropolitan areas had antibodies towards COVID-19. Most of these individuals living in slums had no symptoms with a few with mild symptoms. They were also not tested for COVID-19 and do not appear in the official count for COVID-19 cases.
It is an interesting point as previous studies on COVID-19 suggest that herd immunity is unlikely suggesting individuals that develop antibodies towards COVID-19 after infection have a 14% of getting reinfected. Also, there a several reports to demonstrate that COVID-19 has long term effects, several cured individuals have been experiencing fatigue and other side effects. If herd immunity is possible for COVID-19 to do these individuals belong to the herd immunity population? However further research should be conducted to draw any conclusion.
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