BHUBANESWAR: The demise of Padma Shri awardee teacher Nanda Kishore Prusty, who succumbed to Covid-19 recently, has brought to the fore a serious situation in the State. Covid is now claiming more lives of elderly, who have not been vaccinated.
The trend is clear with the daily case fatality list of Odisha. Of the 61 persons who succumbed to Covid-19 in the last one month, 43 or over 70 per cent were aged above 60 years. Health department statistics reveal close to 90 per cent of the hospitalisation cases and over 75 per cent deaths due to Covid in the last quarter were from the older population.
Even as the vaccination was introduced for the elderly and people with comorbidities first from March itself, sources said around 10 per cent of Odisha’s elderly population, mostly from rural areas are still unvaccinated and close to 20 per cent have not yet received their second dose.
The State has around 40 lakh elderly population with around four lakh still to receive the first dose. While the fatal impact of the disease on elderly is well established, lack of vaccination focus on the very vulnerable population has raised alarm bells.
The first wave in 2020 had asserted a higher mortality risk among the older population but people were not vaccinated then. The State had seen a case-fatality rate (CFR) of 2.26 per cent in 60 and above age group compared to 0.76 per cent in 41-60 age group, 0.12 per cent in the 17-40 and 0.04 per cent in 0-16 year group. The CFR almost doubled among senior citizens during the second wave.
With elderly people, mostly unvaccinated, now falling victims to Covid-19, health experts have appealed to their family members to get them vaccinated amid the rising risk of new variants.
Senior medicine specialist Dr Niroj Mishra said poor literacy and lack of access to digital tools in remote areas have deprived many of Covid vaccine. Elderly people with nutritional deficiencies are prone to chronic illnesses like diabetes, hypertension, heart and lung diseases.
They must be vaccinated at the earliest, he emphasised. State Health authorities said they have been insisting on complete vaccination of the elderly and people with comorbidities. But, there has been lukewarm response, especially after cases started declining during second wave. “We have engaged health care workers to visit people’s doorsteps and mobilise all vulnerable people to get vaccinated,” said Director Family Welfare Dr Bijay Panigrahi.