Sri Lanka, July 6 -- With 1.94 billion people, South Asia is home to almost exactly one-quarter of the world's population. The region, comprising eight countries - Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Bhutan, the Maldives, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal - is extremely poor, densely populated and geographically close to China, where the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated.

The COVID-19 pandemic was expected to be a "perfect storm" for the region. However, as of June 22, South Asia had reported a total of only 765,082 confirmed cases and 19,431 deaths, accounting for just 8.5 percent of global infections and 4.1 percent of world fatalities - even as the numbers in some South Asian countries have spiked drastically in the past few weeks.

Many reasons ha...