More Covid fatalities in rural Punjab than cities

CHANDIGARH: After spreading in urban areas of Punjab, the Covid-19 virus is increasing its stranglehold in the state’s hinterland, leading to higher death rate in rural areas than urban zones. Even though the virus caseload in the urban areas is much higher than the rural areas, the rate of people succumbing is more in rural areas.
The analysis of 382 deaths till July 31 by a special committee constituted under chairmanship of Dr D Behera, former head of the department of pulmonary medicine, PGIMER, the case fatality rate in rural area was 2.9% against the death rate of 2.4% in urban area.

Panel found delay in referral caused deaths
Till July 7, the death rate in urban areas was higher, with 2.4% of people losing their lives to the virus while death rate in rural areas was just 1.9%. Thereafter, the number of deaths witnessed a jump in rural areas, overtaking the fatality rate in urban areas.
Taking serious note of the grim trend, the committee has made recommendations for bringing down the mortality rate of the state (2.4%), which is higher than national average (2.1%).
While carrying out the audit, the committee found that in many cases the cause of death was delay in referral from lower level to higher level. In some of the cases, patients were referred at the last moment, giving little time to doctors at level III facilities to save their lives.
Seeing it as a serious lapse, the committee has recommended that the health department should frame guidelines specifying a timeline for referring patients from lower level facilities to higher level care centres.
As the majority of deceased were having comorbid conditions who delayed seeking, the committee laid stress on launching an aggressive awareness drive encouraging people to approach health facilities at the earliest. Recently, 15 patients died within a few hours of hospitalization, 33 died within two days and seven in five days.
As per the findings of the audit done by the committee, out of 382 deaths, only in 69 cases the patients did not have any underlying health condition while 105 patients had one chronic ailment. As many as 99 patients were having more than one comorbidity while 75 were suffering from more than two ailments and 34 of more than three serious ailments.
Though the committee was satisfied with the number of beds available at all the three levels, it called for improvement in the quality of treatment for which it recommended imparting special training to doctors and paramedics as the treatment knowledge is evolving rapidly.
Talking to TOI, Dr Behera said that Punjab is doing reasonably well and there is no need to panic. He, however, said that the committee has pointed out a few grey areas which the government needs to address.