India’s Covid-19 positive cases continue to rise and have reached 78,768 as of the latest reports on May 14, 2020.
The country reported 3,722 cases in the last 24 hours, and the death toll rose further to 2,564, with 134 new deaths.
The total number of active cases stands at 49,524, and 26, 675 people have recovered to date.
According to the Health Ministry, 70 percent of the death cases reported co-morbidities.
Maharashtra continues at the top position with 25,922 positive cases, followed by Gujarat (9,268), Tamil Nadu (9,227), Delhi (8,470), Rajasthan (4,394), MP (4,173) and UP (3,758), among others.
WHO Releases ‘Global Health Status’ Update
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) released its global health status report on May 13, 2020.
In this report, WHO said Indians are losing a decade of their healthy life to non-communicable diseases like diabetes, cancer, heart and lung diseases.
Now, Coronavirus is compounding the threat to healthy living in India.
According to the WHO Health Statistics report, the average life expectancy in India has decreased from 68.8 years to 59.3 years, currently.
It has decreased from 70.3 years to 59.9 years in the case of women, while there from 67.4 years to 58.7 years among men.
The overall expectancy rate of India is less than developed nations like Japan, where people live 74.2 years disease-free.
“The Covid-19 pandemic will bring this down further as our recent research shows that poor control of diabetes and its many complications will rise in the future,” says Dr. Anoop Mishra, chairman of Fortis Centre for Diabetes, Obesity and Cholesterol, New Delhi.
Now, Coronavirus is derailing the rise in life expectancy rate all over stopping from reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the report adds.
“The good news is that people around the world are living longer and healthier lives. The bad news is the rate of progress is too slow to meet the Sustainable Development Goals and will be further thrown off track by Covid-19,” says Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general, WHO.
Low-income Nations Report Rise
Whereas, in France, Italy, Norway, South Korea and Australia, the people are leading a disease-free life for 73-73.5 years.
Low-income countries reported an 11 percent rise in the life-expectancy rate between 2000-16, favored by increased access to prevention of major diseases like HIV, malaria and TB, among others.
In the case of India, the rate of adolescent births (with births per 1,000 women in the age group of 15-19 years) at 10.7, with 72 percent women in the reproductive age having access to modern contraception methods.
Lessons from COVID-19
Dr. Ghebreyesus recommends a rise in investment in data and health information systems part of the overall public health capacity to fight crises in the future.
“To emerge from this crisis stronger, we must be able to monitor progress with real-time, reliable, and actionable data,” he adds.
He further urged the national governments and respective
health-related departments to come together for strengthening capacities in this area.
Professor at the Indian Institute of Public Health-Hyderabad, Dr. V Ramana Dhara says India needs a health system that is equally good in both urban and rural areas.
