Coronavirus | Nearly 78% of COVID-19 patients in India are under 50: Health Ministry data

60% have at least one co-morbidity, says data from Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme, a Health Ministry body tasked with monitoring disease outbreaks across the country.

July 04, 2020 10:18 pm | Updated July 05, 2020 11:21 am IST - NEW DELHI

A health worker collects swab sample for a COVID-19 test. File.

A health worker collects swab sample for a COVID-19 test. File.

In India, 60% of COVID-19 patients had at least one ‘co-morbidity’ and nearly 78% of them were under 50, says data from the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP), a Health Ministry body, that’s tasked with monitoring disease outbreaks across the country.

The data is only a fraction — less than 1,00,000 — of the confirmed positive cases that today exceeds over 6,50,000 but is based on hospital data and offers glimpses into the unique characteristics of the spread of the disease.

Also read:Coronavirus | Letter on ‘vaccine by August 15’ meant to cut red tape, says ICMR

For instance, while co-morbidities are known to be a major risk factor for death, well-known risk factors — hypertension and diabetes — appeared to play a limited role as far as testing positive for the disease is concerned. Only 8% of 16,155, whose data was publicised by the IDSP, were diabetic and 9% hypertensive. Previous studies have shown that the overall prevalence of hypertension was 29% and diabetes, around 11%. Nearly 30% of those whose co-morbidities were publicised were categorised as ‘others’.

Not enough to rely on international data alone

Experts say there were a wide range of co-morbidities among those who tested positive and frequently it was difficult to tease out the contribution of the virus in worsening health. “Cancers, a history of a bypass, hepatic disorders, kidney ailments come in the category of others,” said Sujeet Kumar Singh, Director, National Centre for Disease Control. The IDSP is a unit of this. ”We now have enough cases to call for a deeper analysis of the peculiar characteristics of the pandemic. It isn’t enough to rely on Western or international data alone to understand Indian disease peculiarities.”

Laying out the symptoms recorded by hospital of 19,813 patients, ‘fever’ was the dominant symptom but noted only in 26% of the cases; cough in 19%. A significant 21% were slotted as “other symptoms” meaning they displayed conditions beyond sore throat, diarrhoea, pain, headache and vomiting. “This is surveillance data from hospitals. Many times they lack necessary detail but going ahead we hope that at least in major clinical centres, more detailed case histories are presented.”

 

Differences in strains

The virus would affect populations differently and “differences in strains” did play a major role in explaining severity and spread, Mr. Singh said. Previous studies have found that as of early June, there were at least 11 subtypes of SARS-CoV-2, six of which were identified in India.

Data | Tracking death rates helps gauge India's COVID-19 response better

When the demographics of nearly 83,000 patients were analysed, 37% were identified as ‘urban’ and only 13% as ‘rural’. The rest were categorised as “not specified”. Mr. Singh said migration and different definitions of classification by authorities of a person’s residence status were a reason for the large number of ‘unspecified’.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.