New Delhi: Districts in Madhya Pradesh may be the most vulnerable to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, followed by those in Bihar and Telangana, as per a study in The Lancet journal, which assessed key indicators like housing, hygiene, and the health system in these states.
According to scientists, including Rajib Acharya from the Population Council, Delhi, vulnerability in the research means the risk of consequences of infection, including spread, morbidity, mortality, and social and economic effects of the pandemic. The study noted 9 of 30 large states — MP, Bihar and Telangana, Jharkhand, UP, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Odisha, and Gujarat — have high vulnerability to be impacted by the Covid-19 crisis.
It rated the vulnerabilities of the states to the pandemic on a scale from zero to one, measured using 15 indicators across 5 domains — socioeconomic, demographic, housing and hygiene, epidemiological, and health system.
“Our index aims to help planners and policy makers effectively prioritise regions for resource allocation and adopt risk mitigation strategies for better preparedness and responses to the Covid epidemic,” the scientists said.
In the study, they identified a number of vulnerable districts in India, currently do not have large numbers of Covid-19 cases but could be strongly impacted.
According to the researchers, a number of districts in the 9 large states — Bihar, MP, Telangana, Jharkhand, UP, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Odisha, and Gujarat — located in every region of the country except the northeast, had high overall vulnerability. They said these states also had high vulnerability with respect to most of the five domains.
MP had an overall vulnerability score of one, making it the most vulnerable, and Sikkim on the other end with a score of zero was noted to be the least vulnerable. Arunachal and Himachal were the other states on the lower vulnerability end of the scale.
