The Aga Khan University’s (AKU) researchers have discovered in a study that 95 per cent of those who had tested positive for Covid-19 through blood tests, which register the presence of antibodies to fight the disease, were asymptomatic.
The study saw AKU faculty investigate virus prevalence in parts of the city – which has reported the most cases in Pakistan to date – with high and low rates of transmission of the pandemic from April and June.
The research report, prepared in collaboration with US-based international collaborators Dr Bailey Fosdick and Dr Daniel Barremore, noted that “the proportion of asymptomatic cases in Pakistan is much higher than in the developed world”.
Since asymptomatic people do not seek hospital treatment this may help explain why Pakistan’s hospitals have not been under the same burden as in other developed countries of the world like Spain and the UK.
In addition, the study also suggested that children and adolescents are just as likely to contract the virus as adults, and men and women face the same perils of being infected from the contagious disease.
