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India has the world's second-biggest population with 1.3bn people. And it's more densely packed than China. Experts are predicting there could be millions of severe Covid-19 cases requiring hospitalisation in India. Although Covid-19 hit India later than many other countries, its rate of infection is expected to follow a similar pattern.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has put the country under a three-week lockdown. However, 78m people live in densely packed urban slums with little access to health care and poor sanitation, raising the risk of rapid transmission of the virus. That said, India does have some things working in its favour. Similar viruses have been shown to prefer colder climates, and 50 per cent of India's population is under the age of 25.
So far, deaths have been concentrated among the elderly. However, many people because of poverty and pollution have underlying health conditions, such as hypertension and diabetes, making them more vulnerable to coronavirus.
India's fragile healthcare system is already stretched to the limit. Unlike China, it doesn't have the resources to cope with a medical emergency on this scale. It only has 100,000 intensive care unit beds. Compared to the size of its population, that's significantly less than China, let alone the west.
India spends just 1 per cent of its GDP on public health. That's significantly less than the US and Italy, two countries which are struggling to cope with a surge in cases and yet also has a shortage of ventilators, a key piece of equipment used to treat people with serious symptoms. That has sparked fears that India's healthcare system will be pushed to the brink of collapse in the case of a widespread outbreak. If New Delhi is unable to get this outbreak under control, not only will it be a humanitarian disaster in India, but it will be a threat to the rest of the world with India going on to spread the virus. With its population of 1.3bn people, how India tackles this crisis is crucial towards ending the pandemic.
