COVID-19: 54% of patients are young, elderly make up 80% of deaths in Bangladesh

Out of over 700,000 coronavirus cases confirmed in Bangladesh so far, nearly 400,000 are young people aged between 21 and 40.

And people aged over 50 account for more than 8,000 of the over 10,000 deaths from the disease.

Experts say that more young people are getting infected because they are going out more while the mortality rate is high among the senior citizens because they have other health complications.

According to the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research or IEDCR, over 54 percent of the patients diagnosed with the disease until Wednesday were people from the 21-40 age group.

As much as 27.6 percent of the patients are aged 21-30 and 27.1 percent are aged 31-40.

Nearly 81 percent of the dead victims were aged over 50. People aged above 60 account for 56.29 percent of the total deaths.

Dr Mushtuq Husain, who advises the government disease control agency IEDCR, said more elderly people die of COVID-19 because they have comorbidities and a weak immune system.

People wait in queues outside Dhaka’s Mugda General Hospital for COVID-19 tests on Saturday, Apr 10, 2021. Photo: Mahmud Zaman Ovi

“Moreover, many of the elderly are unaware of their diabetes and hypertension. So they suffer complications at home after infection. The doctors can’t do much when these patients are hospitalised,” he said.

Dr Be-Nazir Ahmed, an adviser to the World Health Organization, said more young people are getting infected in the ongoing second wave of COVID-19 in Bangladesh.

“The hospitalisation rate is also high among them. It means they are suffering severe symptoms,” he pointed out.

Dr Mushtuq said young people are more vulnerable to contracting the virus because they go out, while the elderly members of their families are getting infected through the young.

Data showed that 74 percent of the dead victims were male.

This is because the female immune system is more resilient than that of men, said Dr Be-Nazir.

Region-wise, densely populated Dhaka has most COVID patients and deaths.

An analysis of data from Mar 27 to Apr 2 showed that the test positivity rate was 36 percent in Dhaka South and 29 percent in Dhaka North while the rate is below 15 percent nationally.

Mushtuq Husain said the dense population coupled with gatherings in indoor programmes drove the coronavirus cases in the city with high risks of person-to-person transmission.

Dhaka also tops the list of divisions in terms of deaths from COVID-19 with 5,854, or over 58 percent of the total victims.

“Deaths will be naturally high where infection rate is high,” said Dr Be-Nazir.