Shocking revelation regarding the decrease in the life expectancy of Chennai residents!!
Posted on: 26/Apr/2022 9:20:03 AM
If you are from Chennai, then this piece of news would make you worry!!
The mean life expectancy of Chennai population has come down now to 66.4 years from 70.7years. This has been mainly due to the Coronavirus based deaths in Chennai in the last 2 years. It is noteworthy that nearly 25000 people have died due to Coronavirus infection alone in Chennai in the last 2 years.
It must be noted that the mathematical correction doesn’t mean that a Chennai resident would die early. The doctors have stressed the importance of stronger public health measures. Chennai registered around 8000 deaths due to Covid-19 infection alone till June 2021.
As per Dr. T. Selvavinayagam, director of public health, there were premature deaths due to delay in diagnosis and treatment for several other diseases and medical emergencies due to various reasons etc. The study was published in Lancet infectious Diseases.
Countries like, USA, UK, Spain and Italy had more elder populations than India but these countries had 1.6 to 2.1 excess deaths per 1000 residents through June 2021. In India, there were 5.2 excess deaths. There was a dip in the life expectancy in Chennai first in the year 2020 to 69.5years.Point is that the second wave reduced the life expectancy in Chennai further. It is shocking to note that this has been the biggest fall in life expectancy in the last 70 years.
Dr. Selvavinayagam later mentioned that the people must get the right treatment at the right time for all their health issues without any hindrance. Between January 2016 and June 2021, 3.3lakhs deaths occurred in Chennai and this included 2.6lakh deaths within areas corresponding to pre2019 district boundaries. There were 8167 deaths in Chennai throughout the pandemic and the number of excess deaths increased with age. It is important to note that there were 0.4excess deaths per 1000 people in the age group 30 to 39. Truth is that not only age, but also socio-economic status that mattered.
During the early 2020 lockdown, those communities with lower socio-economic status had reduction in mortality. These communities reported the highest increase in mortality in the second wave in 2021. This has been responsible for the disproportionate burden of excess deaths.
It was later brought out by Dr. Joseph Lewnard from school of public health, University of California that mortality increased in Chennai at substantial rate but heterogeneously during Covid-19 pandemic. The greatest burden was concentrated in disadvantaged communities.
