Nearly one in five patients, or 17.9% of people, with so-called comorbidities who contract the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in India, succumb to the viral disease, according to data from the Ministry of Health of the Union. For patients without underlying medical conditions, the corresponding proportion is 1.2%.
This means that people with comorbidities are 15 times more likely to die if infected with Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, than those without underlying conditions.
Comorbidity refers to the existence of multiple medical conditions in the same person. In the case of Covid-19, having conditions like hypertension, diabetes, heart, liver, or kidney disease increases the risk that a patient will develop a more serious form of the disease and die.
Although the findings about the highest case fatality rate (the proportion of cases that end in death) for people with comorbidities are largely in line with what scientists around the world have observed, this is the first time that the government publishes data. showing the correlation between mortality and comorbidities in India.
In the US, the only country with more confirmed Covid-19 infections than India, a study by the country’s federal agency Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published in June showed that on 19, 5% of people with underlying diseases died compared to 1.6% of those who were healthy, proportions strikingly similar to those in India.
The greatest variation in the two groups (those with and without comorbidities) in India was reported among people over the age of 60, where nearly a quarter (24.6%) of those with underlying conditions died versus one in 20 patients (4.8%) with none. For those between 45 and 60 years of age, the CFR was 13.9% for patients with comorbidities versus 1.5% for those without. Patients younger than 45 years had the best CFR for both categories: 8.8% for those with underlying diseases and 0.2% for healthy individuals, the Health Ministry said during the weekly Covid-19 briefing on Tuesday.
Experts said that comorbidities can greatly impede the recovery of Covid-19 patients. “Comorbid conditions such as heart, kidney or liver disease or diabetes, etc., greatly impede the recovery process in seriously ill patients with Covid-19. It also takes longer for Covid-19 patients with underlying medical conditions to recover, especially those with uncontrolled illnesses, ”said Dr. Vikas Maurya, chief of respiratory medicine and interventional pulmonology at Fortis Hospital.
The Ministry of Health also provided new data on the distribution of deaths in the country by age and gender. About 88% of Covid-19 deaths have occurred among people over the age of 45, with people over the age of 60 accounting for the largest proportion of deaths (53%). About 70% of the deaths have been in male patients, the Ministry of Health added.
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