But Oliveira worried whether that was even possible. Families in this hillside slum crowd into small homes stacked precariously on top of one another, as in a game of Jenga. Children stream in and out of homes, past fetid canals and down alleyways that are as much community living rooms as passageways.

It’s a challenge now confronting governments across the developing world, as the coronavirus moves into densely populated, poorer countries, where expansive urban slums with limited sanitation and medical care could accelerate disease transmission.

In Liberia, the 2014 outbreak of Ebola was fueled by conditions in the slums of Monrovia. In India, influenza propagates more rapidly in the poorest neighborhoods, which then feed back into the city at large. And in Brazil, even the mosquito-borne disease of Zika was far more concentrated in the favelas of the north, around the city of Recife.

Now in the global war against the coronavirus, analysts believe some of the most important battles will be fought in the poorest parts of the developing world, with …continued .
[Source: Washington Post]