93 doctors lost their lives in Covid-19 services till date says IMA

New Delhi: The Indian Medical Association's (IMA) initial results have revealed that 93 doctors have died while on Covid-19 duty in India till date.

Speaking on this, head of IMA, Dr Rajan Sharma said, "As per the latest count, 93 doctors have died so far due to Covid-19, while 1,279 doctors have been infected. A total of 771 doctors less than the age of 35 years, 247 doctors above the age of 35 years and 261 doctors above 50 years have been infected so far." This figure does not include healthcare workers such as nurses and other healthcare related staff.

"We are working on a research paper of causes of these deaths, and how many have died in general practice, resident category very soon. IMA will come out with all figures and reasons behind this. We are not maintaining any from revealing this data," says Dr Sharma.

Dr Sharma confirmed that these figures have been gathered by IMA when presented with data collected by Dr Rajeev Jayadevan, who is the president of the Kochi branch of IMA in Kerala. Dr Jayadevan claimed that 110 doctors lost their lives. His data comes from news that has been reported by publications both local and national. He also said he is collating data of nurses and other healthcare workers.

Speaking on this, Dr Jayadevan said that he collected the information as a tribute to doctors, nurses and healthcare staff across India who have been working in the pandemic and lost their lives , it was a report titled "100 Doctor Deaths in India during the times of Covid. Lessons, and a tribute". Jayadevan added, "I have tried my best to exclude those where the virus affected their lungs or their immunity and it killed them. Many were working amongst Covid-19 patients and died and these deaths were attributed to Covid-19."

In Maharashtra, the death figures were highest with 23%, followed by Tamil Nadu (16%), Gujarat (11%), Delhi (11%) and Uttar Pradesh (9%).

"At least, 55.5 per cent doctors who died were below 60, average age 56.3 years, 30 per cent doctor deaths were below 50 years, 21 per cent were below 40 years. To my knowledge there isn't any official publication by anyone on this. The pandemic is going to stay with us and we need to know," says Dr Jayadevan.

Dr Jayadevan also said if one adds the healthcare workers, the total goes up to 136, of these eight were violent deaths and two died by suicides.