30% rise in mortality seen in second Covid-19 wave, says ICMR

The second wave of Covid-19 saw a 30% rise in deaths in public as well as private hospitals, the Indian Council of Medical Research said in a new study.

The ICMR researchers compared the outcome in 11,178 patients admitted in a hospital during the first wave with 3,258 hospitalised patients in the second wave, and found 13.3% of the hospitalised people died in the second wave as against 10.2% in the first – a 30% jump in Covid mortality.

“Compared to the first wave, mortality also significantly increased in the second wave in all age groups except in those below 20 years,” said an ICMR official. The records analysed by the ICMR came from a Covid-19 clinical registry that the council has been maintaining since last year.

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In the second wave, a significantly higher proportion of patients complained of shortness of breath, had developed ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome, a life threatening condition) and required supplemental oxygen and mechanical ventilation. The proportion of ARDS increased from 8% in the first wave to 13% in the second.

The clinical profile of admitted patients in the second wave have changed with lesser proportion having comorbidities and higher proportion showing breathlessness. This has led to higher utilisation of oxygen supplementation, mechanical ventilation and subsequently mortality.

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“The explosive nature of the second wave led to a large number of people being affected within a short span of time. This has put the health infrastructure under pressure, making hospitalisation possible for only more severe patients, which could also explain the higher mortality among the hospitalised patients,” the ICMR team reported in the Indian Journal of Medical Research.

The ICMR findings came days after another research paper that found 40% higher mortality among hospitalised patients in the second wave compared to the first one. The study was carried out on patients admitted in nine Max group hospitals spread over five northern states.

The ICMR investigation, on the other hand, covered both public and private institutes from different regions of the country, but the trends in supplemental oxygen utilisation, need for mechanical ventilation, and mortality were similar.