While trends have been suggesting for months that lifestyle diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes made the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in India extremely dangerous, a recent Lancet study confirms these trends as facts.
According to an article in The Print a Lancet report, it said that the results of a large-scale COVID-19 study in India showed that patients from Madurai were at increased risk of death compared to those in China, Europe, South Korea and the USA , although 63 percent of those tested were asymptomatic. According to the report, chronic health problems – like diabetes and high blood pressure – played a crucial role in amplifying the effects of COVID-19 and causing deaths.
The Print said the study found that “the death rate in Covid-19 patients with at least one pre-existing health condition was 5.7%, compared with 0.7% for those who were otherwise healthy, the researchers found. Data comes from more than 400,000 people who underwent a coronavirus test known as RT-PCR during India’s First Wave from May 20 to October 31, 2020 in Madurai, the actual effects of COVID-19 due to massive under-reporting of deaths .
The article claimed that after accessing the infection-death ratio, the researchers also pointed out the extreme under-reporting of COVID-related deaths.
For some time now, patterns emerging from Covid management across the country have indicated that people with comorbidities from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have higher death rates than those who don’t.
In an interview with IANS, Dr. Ambrish Mittal, chairman and head of the Department of Endocrinology and Diabetes, Max Healthcare (Pan Max), previously said, “Diabetes is increasing exponentially in India from 2 percent in the 1970s in urban areas to between 10-20 percent in 2020. In On the subway, diabetes cases are even higher at 35-40 percent. This increase is related to urbanization driven by economic development and was more common in urban areas than rural areas. “
(With inputs from IANS)
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