While the trends have indicated for months now that lifestyle diseases like hypertension and diabetes have made the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic in India extremely dangerous, a recent Lancet study corroborated those trends as facts.
According to an article in The Print a Lancet report states that the findings from a large-scale COVID-19 study conducted in India revealed that patients from Madurai had an increased risk of death compared to those in China, Europe, South Korea, and the United States even though 63 percent of those tested were asymptomatic. According to the report, chronic health problems — such as diabetes and hypertension — played a crucial role in amplifying the effects of COVID-19 and causing fatalities.
The Print said that the study found that, “The death rate was 5.7% among Covid-19 patients with at least one existing health condition, compared to 0.7% in those who were otherwise healthy, the researchers found. The data came from more than 400,000 people who underwent coronavirus testing known as RT-PCR in Madurai from May 20 to October 31, 2020, during India’s first wave.”The report further stated that due to extreme underreport, it is hard to access the true impact of COVID-19 due to the massive underreporting of fatalities.
The article claimed that after accessing the ratio between infections and fatalities, the researchers also pointed out the extreme underreporting of COVID-related deaths.
For some time now, patterns emerging from Covid management across the country indicate that people with co-morbidities of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have a higher mortality rate than those who do not.
In an interview with IANS, Dr. Ambrish Mittal, Chairman and Head, Endocrinology and Diabetes Department, Max Healthcare (Pan Max), had previously said, “Diabetes has risen exponentially in India from 2 per cent in the 1970s in urban areas to between 10-20 per cent in 2020. The cases of diabetes are even higher in metros at 35-40 per cent. This spike is linked to urbanization led by economic development and has been more prevalent in urban areas as compared to rural areas.”
(With inputs from IANS)
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