Special vaccination drive for students at a shool in Navi Mumbai on Tuesday. (Narendra Vaskar) MAJORITY OF the deaths from Covid-19 reported in January and February across Maharashtra this year were of patients, who had co-morbid conditions like diabetes, hypertension and cardiac ailment.
In January till mid Feb this year a total of 1,690 Covid-19 deaths were reported. “We could get information about the medical history of the deceased for 1,022 cases and around 810 had comorbidities. Of these 311 had hypertension, 206 patients were diabetic and 109 had heart conditions. Others had different ailments while around 212 did not have any comorbidity,” Dr Pradeep Awate, state surveillance officer said. Of the 1,690 deaths a total of 848 deaths were in the 61-80 age group. The overall case fatality ratio (CFR) has been 0.15 per cent and in children below 10 years the CFR has been the least as low at 0.03 per cent, Dr Awate said.
Meanwhile at Mumbai and Pune state-run government, college genome sequencing laboratories experts have also assessed approximately 500 hospitalised cases of the omicron variant and said that being unvaccinated and suffering from comorbidities can put patients infected with Omicron at high risk of the severe outcome.
Dr Jayanthi Shastri, Professor and Head of Department of Microbiology at BYL Nair Hospital and in-charge of the genome sequencing facility at Kasturba Hospital, said that they had undertaken a study to understand the clinical correlation of Omicron and hospitalisation.
“This is an ongoing study and around 500 hospitalised cases have been included from four tertiary care and around 8-10 private hospitals in Mumbai. Initial findings do indicate that 52.13 per cent of the cases were unvaccinated. People, who have co-morbid conditions must be vigilant,” Dr Shastri said.
Their study also found that 44 per cent of the infections had the BA.1 sub-lineage of the Omicron variant while 49.65 per cent were infected with the BA.2 sub-lineage. “Those infected with BA.1 and BA.2 sub-lineage had the same range of symptoms. Adverse outcomes were mainly observed in the unvaccinated patients with co-morbidities,” Dr Shastri told The Indian Express.
While hybrid immunity (vaccination, rampant Delta wave infections) has ensured low mortality during the third wave, an initial study at Pune’s Sassoon general hospital also analysed 86 Omicron cases. “Our study is still underway, and we have written to private hospitals to also include their cases,” Dr Rajesh Karyakarte, Professor and Head of the Department of Microbiology, B J Medical College and Sassoon general hospital said.
B J Medical College had initially set up the genome sequencing facility in February last year and sequenced 2,233 samples to date.
Subsequently, as part of the memorandum of understanding with IISER, NCL and Pune Knowledge Cluster over 10,000 samples have been sequenced. Samples were also sent from the state to Insacog.
Dr Karyakarte who is the state coordinator for the genome sequencing project said, “We could conclusively give the information that Omicron had not landed in India in November. It was reported in the community in Mumbai from December 15 and then a week later in Pune. Our genome sequencing study proves that a new variant is responsible for a surge anywhere. So, we must be on an alert if the numbers keep increasing despite a lull,” Dr Karyakarte added.
“While virus variants will continue to emerge, we have seen past exposure to infection, immunisation, breakthrough infections, which have in a sense created an immunity wall that has been crucial in this Omicron wave leading to fewer hospitalisations,” Dr Sanjay Pujari, infectious diseases consultant added.
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