Deaths per crore population increasing in State

It has doubled in the last 20 days

The deaths per crore population in Karnataka due to COVID-19 has doubled in the last 20 days.

The deaths per crore population as of Wednesday stands at 4.7. On 16 April, it stood at 2. So far in Karnataka, there are 29 deaths due to COVID-19 and another death has been attributed to non COVID-19 related causes.

S. Sachidanand, Vice-Chancellor of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), who heads the committee that has conducted an audit of the COVID-19 deaths in the State, said that mortality rate among patients who are aged above 60 was higher compared to the rest of the population. He said that the same pattern was reported in the rest of the world as well.

Doctors and medical experts point out that it was a matter of concern if patients who have influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) catch the infection, which were not being detected early.

Slew of measures

Dr. Sachidanand, however, said that the State government had initiated a slew of measures to test and ensure early detection of COVID-19 among those having SARI and ILI. He said that the case history of the 17 deaths analysed by the committee showed that majority of them did not have fever initially.

Another senior official of the Department of Health and Family Welfare pointed out that all the patients who passed away, besides testing positive for COVID-19, also had other comorbidities. “As symptoms show up several days after the person has caught the infection, it remains a challenge. We want to detect cases early so that we can provide the necessary medical intervention. If the patients are admitted late, it becomes difficult to save lives. We have ordered a survey of the SARI and ILI cases across the State so that our monitoring mechanism becomes more robust,” the official said.

The State, which was in 10th position in the deaths per crore population category, has now slipped to the 12th position. The number of deaths in other States too are on the rise over the last fortnight. As of Wednesday, the highest number of deaths per crore population was 60.9, which was reported in Gujarat.

Among the southern States, Karnataka fares better than Telangana and Andhra Pradesh but Tamil Nadu and Kerala have fared better than Karnataka.