Diabetes emerges as single biggest comorbidity factor in Haryana’s Covid deaths

10-DAY FORECAST

CHANDIGARH: Diabetes mellitus, a chronic metabolic disorder in which blood sugar levels are abnormally high, has emerged as the single biggest comorbidity factor (an existing medical condition) in the deaths of patients infected with coronavirus in Haryana.

About 62% of the total infected persons who died till August 2 in the state due to the virus had comorbidities.

Data analysed by the health department on comorbidity factor in Covid-19 patients showed that about 8% of the 433 infected persons who succumbed to the viral illness till August 2 had diabetes.

Statistics show that about 30% of the infected persons who died had multiple comorbidities. Dr Usha Gupta, director, health services, integrated disease surveillance programme (IDSP), said that multiple comorbidities means that the patients had more than one existing medical condition such as hypertension and diabetes or renal function impairment which affected their conditions. “Patients with comorbidity are immunocompromised and their organs are also not in a good shape,” she said.

While about 5% patients who died had an existing respiratory disease, 4% patients each had heart disease and high blood

Cumulative infections by Aug 13: About 45,600 Recovered patients by Aug 13: About 37,800

Active cases by Aug 13: About 7,700

New infections reported last week (July 27-Aug 2): 5,187 (Source: Health department, prediction as per average daily increase in cases) pressure, statistics reveal.

About 3% of the dead had kidney disease, about 2% patients each had neurological disorder, cancer and liver disease and 1% were anaemic.

The health department is investigating the comorbidities leading to the death of 5% Covid-19 infected persons.

Head of the pulmonary and critical care medicine at PGIMS, Rohtak, professor Dhruva Chaudhary, said he gets extremely worried if a coronavirus infected person is pre-diabetic or diabetic.

“Our experience is that a number of coronavirus infected patients admitted in hospitals have quite high levels of blood sugar. This is because either they have diabetes or pre-diabetes. Also, the stress of the Covid-19 infection in a patient can result in an adrenaline surge, thus increasing the blood sugar levels. The infection can also lead to fall in insulin level due to the steroids given to patients,” said Dr Chaudhary, who is also the nodal officer for Covid-19 in Haryana.

He said he would suspect the virus of doing mischief if the blood sugar levels were elevated in an infected person who otherwise had controlled blood sugar and was not being administered steroids.

4 NORTHERN DISTRICTS GET ‘CRITICAL’ TAG

Northern Haryana districts of Panchkula, Kurukshetra, Karnal and Panipat have also bagged the critical tag in the last fortnight for having more than 200 coronavirus active cases, a critical value as per the parameters recommended by the Union ministry of health. The total number of districts having more than 200 active cases is now 11.

Karnal, Kurukshetra, Panchkula and Palwal have also got more than 15 active cases per lakh population in the last fortnight. As per the health department statistics, the total number of such districts is 13.

While the sample positivity rate (confirmation rate) in Sonepat fell down to 5.8% last week, Panipat with a confirmation rate of 6.3% has earned the ‘critical value’ tag. The total number of districts having more than 6% confirmation rate are four.