Why Indians could be more immune to virus

People living in poor countries such as India could be more immune to coronavirus because of the conditions they are used to.

Researchers have suggested there is a link between income and deaths from COVID-19, according to the BBC.

While India has 8.2m cases and 123,000 deaths, the death rate is relatively low in the country of 1.3 billion.

It's under two per cent, among the lowest in the world.

One team of researchers from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has found people people died of COVID-19 in higher income countries.

It looked at density of population, demography, prevalence of diseases, and quality of sanitation.

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"People in poorer, low income countries seem to have a higher immunological response to the disease compared to high income peers," Dr Mande, one of the authors of the study, told the BBC.

Another research group looked at microbes in the body, which help protect against disease.

Praveen Kumar and Bal Chander from Dr Rajendra Prasad Government Medical College found COVID-19 deaths are lower in countries which have a higher population exposed to a diverse range of microbes - especially what is called "gram-negative bacteria".

It produces molecules which help fight pathogens which protects cells against the coronavirus.

"So far, the existing predictive models for COVID-19 have not taken into account the immune status of populations caused by microbiome or environmental microbial exposure," Dr Chander told the BBC.

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