Most patients had heart or kidney ailments: Report on Covid deaths in Delhi

Out of the total number of Covid deaths in Delhi audited for the period January 12-February 7, majority of these patients had co-morbid conditions like heart diseases or kidney ailments, according to a report.

Of the 853 deaths audited for this period, 779 or 91 per cent were those who were found with co-morbidities, as per the report on COVID-19 deaths analysis, shared by official sources.

Among those who died after contracting coronavirus infection, and were found suffering from co-morbid conditions, patients with heart ailments accounted for 20 per cent of the cases, and those with kidney diseases 19 per cent, as per the report.

A senior official had earlier said that, "The deaths where COVID-19 is reported in the patients are treated as coronavirus deaths. It is an established principle. We have a panel of experts and the analysis was done to see whether there was a pattern to the pneumonia that was typical of Covid, but it was found that the fatalities were among those who were end-stage patients".

Over 750 deaths due to Covid were reported in Delhi in total during the month of January, as per official data.

Many medical experts and doctors who have been treating coronavirus patients since the start of the pandemic, also said that deaths in the third wave is happening largely due to co-morbid conditions of patients, and not primarily due to the Omicron variant.

"Yes, Omicron variant is highly transmissible, and had affected large number of people in this wave, but the number of hospital admissions is very less compared to the figures in the previous waves, and ICU admissions are being needed largely for patients who had one or more co-morbid conditions," said Dr Suranjit Chatterjee, a senior consultant at Apollo hospital here.

He said, any co-morbid condition worsens clinical condition of any patient, be it Covid infection or other diseases.

"The primary cause of death, among these patients was co-morbid conditions and not Omicron infection per se," Chatterjee said.

The number of daily cases and deaths due to Covid have also decreased in the last several days.

Delhi on Wednesday reported 1,317 fresh COVID-19 cases and 13 deaths, while the positivity rate dropped to 2.11 per cent, according to data shared by the city health department.

With this, the national capital's case count increased to 18,47,515 and the death toll climbed to 26,023 the latest health bulletin stated.

The number of daily cases in Delhi has been on the decline after touching the record high of 28,867 on January 13. The city had recorded a positivity rate of 30.6 per cent on January 14, the highest during the ongoing wave of the pandemic.