Covid-19 has killed twice as many men as women in India. According to the health ministry data reported by the Hindustan Times, men account for 69% of all coronavirus fatalities.By the third week of August, Covid had killed close to 39,000 men while just over 17,000 women lost their lives to the virus.
The data also shows that more than 90% of the people who died, both men and women, were above 40 years of age. The Covid-19 deaths are the highest in the 61-70 year age group among both genders, the report stated.More than half the 56,292 Covid-19 deaths across states by August 22 were in the 50 -70 age group, with Covid-19 deaths being the highest in the 61-70 year age group among both genders.
Less than one in three persons who died of Covid-19 was a woman. By August 22, women accounted for 17,315 of the total Covid-19 toll of 56,292. The pandemic had killed 38,973 men by the third week of August, shows the data, which categorises four deaths as “to be updated” and “others.”
The unreleased data on deaths appears reaffirm what scientists have observed about the global fatality trends of the disease it is disproportionally fatal for men, and for those who are older.Deaths among women are roughly a third of all Covid fatalities, with the only anomaly being that of death rates being almost the same in girls and boys aged 20 years and below. Girls accounted for 49% of the 599 Covid-19 deaths in the 11-20 age group.Children under 10 years are the least likely to die of Covid-19.
There were 301 Covid-19 deaths among people over the age of 90 years, who account for 0.5% of the total deaths. This is much lower than the global average, where people 85 years old and above account for 3.4% deaths, according to World Health Organization data till June.
“The risk of dying from coronavirus disease is also linked to underlying health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension and kidney disease, and the capacity of health-care systems. India’s test, track and treat strategy has focused on diagnosis, surveillance and treatment while simultaneously strengthening health systems and supply chains, which, along with the invaluable hard work of Covid warriors, has helped bring down the case fatality rate to 1.7%,” said Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan.The global Covid fatality rate is 3.3%.
Worldwide, age remains is a strong predictor of the risk of death from Covid-19, which hits people in their mid-fifties, sixties and seventies the hardest.Death among young adults usually occurs within 24 hours of hospitalisation. “Older adults die of pneumonia and other Covid-19 related complications, but sudden, unexpected death is more common in young adults in their 20s and 30s, whose condition dips very quickly after admission. In such cases, the cause of death is usually cardiovascular, with abnormal clotting in brain, lungs and heart leading to cardiac arrest,” said Dr Shiv K Sarin, director, Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, New Delhi, where India’s first plasma bank has been set up for convalescent therapy to treat Covid-19 .
Unlike in Europe, where the majority of deaths took place among older people living in care or assisted-living homes, deaths among people over 80 are relatively fewer in India. A major reason is that life expectancy is lower 69.1 years in India, compared to 83.2 years in Italy, 80.9 years in Germany, and 78.4 years in the US.
Sars-CoV-2 causes infection by using its crown-like spike protein, which gives the virus its name (corona is Latin for crown) to bind to ACE2 receptors on the surface of human cells, from where it invades the air sacs in the lungs, leading to respiratory collapse.
Men’s immune response to new coronavirus infection differs from that of women, which led to more severe disease often being observed in men, said a team of US researchers led by Akiko Iwasaki from the Yale University School of Medicine. The study, published in the journal Nature last week, found men had higher levels of inflammation-causing proteins called cytokines and chemokines in their blood while women had a stronger T cells response. T cells, which are a part of the body’s longer-lasting immune response, seek and destroy infected cells to stop virus from replicating inside the body. Cytokines are proteins that regulate immune response. Covid-19 is marked by a hyper immune response called a cytokine storm, which can lead to death.
The study found that infection worsened in men with weak T-cell response while women who had more severe disease had increased amounts of inflammatory cytokines.
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