Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the risk of dying from the disease was roughly twice as high for people living in lower-income countries as for those in rich nations, a study reports.

The research, published in BMJ Global Health in May1, is one of a growing number of studies to reveal COVID-19’s massive burden in lower-income countries.

Data from early in the pandemic suggested that death and infection rates in poor countries were relatively low compared with those in rich ones. But recent evidence paints a very different picture, says Madhukar Pai, an infectious- disease epidemiologist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. “This paper is one among many that illustrate that the biggest impact of this pandemic has been on low- and middle-income countries,” says Pai.

Read more at Nature