'Attempt to check Covid has unwittingly increased non-covid deaths during unsustainable lockdown':Expert

'In a country where malnutrition is entrenched, especially among children, there is the danger of hunger becoming widespread too. And so innumerable deaths of malnourished people might have taken place because of starvation in the last 50 days of lockdown,' the medic noted, pointing to the extended nation-wide shut-down imposed by the government to rein in the deadly Coronavirus.

India’s lockdown, the strictest in the world, may have killed the economy without saving lives, because any reduction in covid deaths may have been offset by excess mortality caused by the lockdown. India urgently needs analysis of its own excess mortality in the last 50 days of lockdown, Dr Purohit, Advisor to the Association of Studies for Health Economics, said.

'India has 25 million cases of Tuberculosis with 500,000 deaths per year. The World Health Organisation estimates that India has 15 million malaria cases causing 20,000 deaths per year. The lockdown has disrupted preventive anti-malaria programmes in most states,' he said, expressing concern.

Dr Purohit, Visiting Professor at the Kolkata based West Bengal University of Health Sciences,School of Public Health,
stated that the number of patients coming for other ailments, including heart diseases, strokes and cancer, had fallen dramatically in the past 50 days.

'People with symptoms avoid hospitals, fearful of catching the covid virus in the crowds there. The entire medical system has shifted focus so overwhelmingly to Covid-19 that other diseases are being neglected. All “nonessential surgeries” have been halted and most ICU  beds are reserved for covid patients. This attempt to check covid has unwittingly increased deaths from other causes,' the physician said.

Dr Purohit pointed out that the lockdown has meant a collapse of surgeries and outpatient visits, leading to empty Intensive Care Unit (lCU) beds and huge financial losses in private corporate hospitals. 'They desperately need financial help from the government to pay salaries and stay open,' he observed.

'The lockdown has substantially reduced deaths from traffic and workplace accidents. Murders have fallen as criminals stay locked down. So, Non-Covid deaths should have fallen sharply the world over. Alas, the lockdown has caused the opposite,' Dr Purohit reasoned.

Quoting a recent data of the Association of Studies for Health Economics, he said more than 300 people who died since March 19 this year, mostly during the first two phases of the coronavirus lockdown, lost their lives to hunger, financial distress, exhaustion, police atrocities for violating lockdown orders and the inability to get timely medical attention.

'There have been a staggering number of suicides as well, caused by fear of infection, loneliness, lack of freedom of movement and alcohol withdrawal during the lockdown,' he observed.

Photo:UNI