COVID-19 deaths largely due to heart and kidney ailments: Report

Most of the COVID-19 patients who died in the capital between January 12 to February 7, had suffered from co-morbidity conditions such as heart disease or kidney ailments, said a report.

Nearly 779 patients or 91 per cent of the 853 COVID-19 deaths in Delhi had co-morbidities, stated the report on coronavirus deaths analysis.

Patients with heart ailments accounted for 20 per cent of the cases, and those with kidney diseases 19 per cent. In India, as a rule, the deaths where COVID-19 is reported in the patients are treated as coronavirus deaths.

The findings of this report seem to be echoed by many medical experts and doctors involved in treating COVID-19 patients since the pandemic started. They also felt that deaths in the third wave was not triggered by the Omicron variant as widely believed but it was largely due to the co-morbidity conditions of patients.

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Though the Omicron variant is highly transmissible, and had affected a large number of people in the third wave, the number of hospital admissions was less compared to the figures in the previous waves. And the patients who were admitted in the ICUs had one or more co-morbid conditions, according to medical personnel in the capital.

Any co-morbidity in a patient automatically worsens the clinical condition of any patient, be it COVID infection or other diseases, said a report in a business daily quoting a doctor.

Meanwhile, the number of daily cases and deaths due to COVID have also dropped in the last several days. Delhi saw just a marginal rise in COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours reporting about 1,317 new infections on February 10.

According to the health bulletin issued by Delhi health department, the positivity rate was reported to be 2.11 per cent. As many as 1,908 patients have recovered from the virus in the last 24 hours, while 13 succumbed to COVID. The cumulative recoveries in Delhi stand at 18,15,188 and the COVID death toll at 26,023.