A new research by Indian scientists suggests that poor hygiene, lack of access to clean drinking water, and unhygienic conditions may have actually saved many lives in the country from Coronavirus.
A joint study by the WHO and the United Nations' children's agency, UNICEF found that nearly three billion people - some 40% of the global population and living almost entirely in developing nations - lack "basic hand washing facilities". This was enough to spark concerns that the coronavirus would tear through their populations, and lead to millions of deaths in countries such as India.
However, a recent report suggests that the poor and downtrodden may have defeated the virus after-all because they have developed immunity against various pathogens from childhood due to inhabitable living conditions in places like slums and growing up around areas polluted with human waste and excreta. This immunity has helped them as a protective shield against Covid-19.
This hypothesis is still under review, but it is indeed an unfortunate yet surprising discovery if it stands true some day.
"Typically access to healthcare facilities, hygiene and sanitation is poorer in these countries and is often believed to be the contributing factor of higher incidence of communicable diseases there. It was not unexpected that Covid-19 would have catastrophic consequences in the low and low-middle income countries," Dr Shekhar Mande, director general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) told the BBC.
The same report also claimed that scientists found more people had died of Covid-19 in high income countries. Praveen Kumar and Bal Chander from Dr Rajendra Prasad Government Medical College looked at data from 122 countries, including 80 high and upper middle-income ones. They suggest that Covid-19 deaths are lower in countries which have a higher population exposed to a diverse range of microbes, particularly of what is called "gram-negative bacteria".
These bacteria typically are responsible for severe pneumonia, blood and urinary tract and skin infections. But they also are believed to produce an antiviral cytokine - molecules which help fight pathogens - called interferon which protects cells against the coronavirus.
Smita Iyer, an immunologist at the University of California, Davis, believes the "hygiene hypothesis" in Covid-19 "does fly in the face of our understanding of antiviral immune responses".
