Director of Public Health T.S. Selvavinayagam has appealed to senior citizens to get themselves vaccinated and take their medications to prevent death due to COVID-19. According to him, fewer elders have been vaccinated in Tamil Nadu than the other age groups.
Only 62% of the elderly had received their first dose and 48% the second dose. Whereas 88.62% of the other categories had received their first dose and 64.23% their second dose as on Sunday. To drive home the need for vaccination, Dr. Selvavinayagam cited the analysis of 191 deaths reported from January 1 to 15. It revealed that 163 of the deaths (85.3%) occurred among those aged above 50. Furthermore, 181 persons among them had pre-existing ailments that led to their death. “The analysis of combination of the elderly with co-morbid [conditions] reveals that 159 out of 191, constituting 83.2% of the deaths, happened among elderly persons with probably an uncontrolled co-morbidity,” he explained. Only 68.5% of them (131) had been vaccinated — either they had received one dose or none at all. The protective effect of vaccination was lost as the elderly had no control over their co-morbidities. But this needed a case-to-case analysis, he said.
Dr. Selvavinayagam said an unvaccinated elderly with co-morbidity needed hospital-based care to prevent death due to the infection. “It is time to protect our elders by vaccinating them and ensuring that they take proper medication for the co-morbidity and keep it under control.”
