Gulf’s young population ‘helped reduce Covid toll’
A major factor limiting coronavirus fatalities in the Gulf may be the smaller proportion of elderly people in the region.
Scientists have studied why GCC nations had far lower Covid-19 death rates than European countries did early in the pandemic.
Researchers in the US and Jordan used World Health Organisation data to calculate case fatality rates (CFRs) among people confirmed to have contracted the virus for all GCC nations, then compared them with data for 33 European countries.
“Comparing individual GCC and European countries with similar numbers of confirmed Covid-19 cases showed that the mortality was five to 10 times higher in Europe,” they wrote in a study published in Qatar Medical Journal.
“Even outside Europe, only a few countries reported such low case fatality rates [as the GCC nations].”
Analysing data up to May 12 last year, the researchers calculated that the UAE’s CFR was 1.06 per cent, while in Kuwait the figure was 0.69 per cent, in Saudi Arabia 0.62 per cent, in Oman 0.45 per cent, in Bahrain 0.15 per cent and in Qatar 0.06 per cent.
“Within Europe over the same time period, 10 countries had CFRs above 10 per cent, with the majority above 3 per cent,” wrote the researchers from the University of Jordan and Saint Mary’s Medical Group in Indiana in the US.
“The difference in age groups between the Gulf region and Europe may be the most important factor, mainly due to a younger population and a smaller elderly demographic in the Gulf region,” they wrote.
Increased age raises the risk of serious illness or death after catching the coronavirus.
In the EU as a whole, 19.2 per cent of the population is aged over 65, according to figures for the bloc from 2016.
In the UAE, only 1.16 per cent of people are aged over 65, according to 2019 figures reported by the World Bank. In Saudi Arabia the figure is about 3 per cent.
The researchers also said the number of Covid-19 tests carried out and variations in the reporting of Covid-19 deaths may also have influenced their findings.
That European countries were exposed to large case numbers earlier, when governments and healthcare systems were less well prepared, may also have caused these nations to have higher CFRs.
However, differences in the quality of health care were “not the main factor for the lower CFR across the GCC”, the researchers said.
Dr Davinder Pal Singh, a cardiologist at NMC Royal Hospital in Dubai, agreed with the study that the low proportion of elderly people in the GCC was a major factor in explaining differences in death rates.
“In Gulf countries, the population is middle-aged. The elderly population and the chronically disabled with illness is very low,” he said.
“In Europe, the elderly population is much higher. They are more likely to be getting chronic illnesses.”
The quality of health care would, he said, be unlikely to account for the stark differences between the GCC and European countries, with facilities and treatments “equally good” in the two regions.
Speaking of the current situation in hospitals, Dr Singh said that with the UAE’s population now highly vaccinated, there had been significant improvements.
The country is recording fewer than 20 deaths a week and sometimes fewer than 10, compared with more than 100 deaths a week during a period in February.
“The pandemic part is over,” Dr Singh said. “We don’t face so many patients, so much severity. It’s much better.”