BHOPAL: Concerned over the COVID- 19 fatality rate, the Madhya Pradesh government has asked deans of medical colleges to ensure daily death audit in the districts of their region for finding out the reasons behind each death happening in the state. Faiz Ahmad Kidwai, the Commissioner of MP Health Services, confirmed that all deans of medical colleges were tasked with detailed daily audit.
At a Covid review meeting recently, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had asked the officials to focus on analysis of each viral death for bringing down the mortality rate in MP. As per the health bulletin released on Tuesday evening, the state had reported 364 deaths against 8,420 positive cases, which meant around 4.32 per cent mortality rate — way higher than India’s 2.8 per cent.
Only Gujarat has a higher Covid mortality rate at 6.18 per cent. Even states, like Delhi (556 deaths) and Maharashtra (2465), which reported much more deaths than MP, have a better mortality rate of 2.51 per cent and 3.37 per cent. Dr Jyoti Bindal, the Dean of Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (MGM) Medical College in Indore, said the audit work is underway at two levels.
Firstly, for each district coming in Indore region, two MGM faculties were tasked with coordinating with the chief medical and health officer (CMHO) of each district to get detailed audit of each Covid death. Secondly, a six-member panel was constituted to conduct the death audit in Indore. Notably, Indore, a Covid hotspot, has 3.86 per cent mortality rate, but smaller districts, including Khargone (7.05%), Khandwa (5.17%) and Burhanpur (5.26%) have reported higher mortality rates.