In a shocking revelation, a study published in an international medical journal said Telangana is one of the most vulnerable states to the long-term effects of COVID-19 pandemic. And the state is in the company of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and UP, all popular as Bimaru states.
The study has given the ranking to the Indian states and UTs on a scale of 0 (zero) to 1, where Zero is the least vulnerable state, and the 1 stands for the most vulnerable state. The study is done by Rajib Acharya and Akash Porwal of Population Council of India, New Delhi.
According to the study, vulnerability means the risk of consequences of infection, including spread, morbidity and mortality, and social and economic consequences. The vulnerability index of the study includes demographic indicators that might represent both susceptibility and vulnerability.
Overall COVID-19 vulnerability index India and number of confirmed cases as of June 17, 2020 (source: The Lancet)
According to the study, Madhya Pradesh is the most vulnerable state with 1 score while Bihar has a score of 0.971. Telangana is in the third position with a 0.943 score. Rankings are given based on 15 parameters.
The important parameters such as epidemiological vulnerability (a large number of people having co-morbid health conditions that can impact Covid-19 mortality) and vulnerability due to non-availability of healthcare infrastructure among others contributed to the Telangana’s poor show.
Under epidemiological vulnerability, the study took factors such as men with chronic morbidity, men who smoke, women with any chronic morbidity into consideration.
Telangana has seen numerous instances of patients dying because they have not found beds in time, denial of admission, shortage of oxygen, and poor infrastructure in government hospitals.
Telangana’s over-all high score of 0.943 is the result of its poor performance in epidemiological vulnerability( 0.800), non-availability of health care (0.657), housing, and hygiene condition vulnerability (0.629) demographic vulnerability (0.714), and socioeconomic vulnerability (0.571).
Andhra Prades is far better it is a notch above Gujarat with an overall vulnerability score 0.714.
“The results of our study show that districts in nine of 30 large states—Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Odisha, and Gujarat—have a high overall vulnerability,” the report said.
