A study showed that about a quarter of New Delhi's residents were infected with the emerging coronavirus, casting doubt on official figures in the city and across India.
India became, last Friday, the third country to cross the threshold of one million cases of the emerging coronavirus after the United States and Brazil, but a number of experts believe that this number is much lower than the actual number of infected people, given that the number of tests being conducted is still weak.
And blood tests conducted by the National Center for Disease Control on 21,387 people, randomly chosen throughout New Delhi, revealed that 23.48% of them had antibodies to the deadly virus, indicating their past exposure to the virus.
The results released by the Federal Ministry of Health the day before yesterday, indicate that 4.7 million people from New Delhi, amounting to more than 20 million, have contracted the virus, nearly 40 times the official number of 125 thousand.
While the ministry praised government restrictions that limited the spread of the virus, it said that the study "indicates that a large number of infected people are still without symptoms."
The survey was conducted between June 27 and July 10.
India is the third country to exceed the one-million marker.