India is an exception
All over the world, there are higher COVID-19 death rates in men than in women, but India is an exception. This is quite uncommon, but recent research from India shows that women have a higher risk of dying from the novel coronavirus than men. Looking at the figures, the mortality rate in women is 3.3% compared to 2.9% in men. Also, in the 40 to 49 age group, 3.2% of infected women lost their lives, compared to 2.1% of men. Surprisingly, in the 5 to 19 age group, only women and girls lost their lives.
Researchers are still trying to figure out why things in India work differently than all over the world. They’re trying to find out why this country is an exception. Some believe that the fact that there are more older women in India than there are men could be a factor.
Moreover, in opposition to the United States, Europe, and Asia, women pay less attention to their health than men. Also, in India, women are usually tested later than men.
“How much of this can be attributed to biological factors and how much of this is associated with social factors is unclear. Gender can be a critical factor in Indian settings,” SV Subramanian, Professor of Public Health at Harvard University, told the British broadcaster BBC.
A good example to support those findings is the 1918 flu, when the number of deaths in women was significantly higher than in men. Indian women were more sensitive to the virus because they lived in unhygienic and poorly ventilated places, they were malnourished and took care of the sick. However, more evidence is still needed to support these theories.
