Chandigarh 3rd in highest risk of Covid-19 deaths, says study

CHANDIGARH: As many as 19.05% households are at higher risk of losing their lives to coronavirus in the city, landing it at the third position followed by Kerala (33.19%) and Andhra Pradesh (19.85%) in the country, according to a study by authors Rajeev Ranjan Singh, Palak Sharma and Priya Maurya, research officers, International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai.
The study found that about 9.4% of Indian households are at a higher risk of losing at least one individual due to the virus.

Previous published medical literature had found that 23% of the city residents above the age of 30 were hypertensive. With 40% prevalence of diabetes in the city, it is considered as the diabetic capital of the country. “These comorbidities have been considered besides the case fatality rate to evaluate death during Covid,” said Palak.
The study used nationally representative data of National Sample Survey Organisation for information on morbidity and other health-related issues. Data from the official website of the ministry of health and family welfare dedicated to Covid-19 reports have been used to look into the recent happenings caused by the pandemic in India.
The survey covered 1,13,823 households nationwide, where 89,410 households have at least one patient (including inpatient and outpatient). Out of the total surveyed households about 9.38% were found to be at risk, where at least one person in the household is suffering from one or more of the chronic diseases.
Among all the reported chronic ailments the highest proportion was shared by hypertension (28%) followed by diabetes (27%) and respiratory diseases (25%) and least shared by tuberculosis (2.24%).
Results show that population aged 60 and above are at the highest risk of having one or more chronic diseases (52.3%). Every two out of five (40%) belonging to age group 45-59 have at least one morbidity condition.