Nearly half a million residents in the Chinese city where the novel coronavirus first emerged may have been infected with Covid-19 -- almost 10 times its official number of confirmed cases, according to a study by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The study used a sample of 34,000 people in the general population in Wuhan -- the original epicenter of the pandemic -- and other cities in Hubei province, as well as Beijing, Shanghai, and the provinces of Guangdong, Jiangsu, Sichuan and Liaoning to estimate Covid-19 infection rates.
The researchers found an antibody prevalence rate of 4.43% for Covid-19 among residents in Wuhan, a metropolis of 11 million people. As of Sunday, Wuhan had reported a total of 50,354 confirmed cases of Covid-19, according to the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission.
The study aimed to estimate the scale of past infections in a population by testing blood serum samples from a pool of people for coronavirus antibodies. Its findings are not taken to be final statistics of how many people in a given area have been exposed to the virus.
The Chinese CDC said the study was conducted a month after China "contained the first wave of the Covid-19 epidemic." The prevalence rate outside of Wuhan is significantly lower, the study showed. In other cities in Hubei, only 0.44% of residents surveyed were found to have coronavirus antibodies.
Outside the province, antibodies were only detected in two people among the more than 12,000 residents surveyed.
The results of the study were revealed in a Chinese CDC post on social media Monday. It did not mention whether the study has been published in academic journals.
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