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This story is from May 16, 2021

As cities ‘stabilise’ in Maharashtra, Covid cases & toll in peri-urban, rural areas a concern

Covid-19 is raging in the peri-urban and rural areas of many districts in Maharashtra even as cases have dipped or plateaued in cities adjoining them. At least 32% of the state’s daily detections are now coming from rural areas, while some districts are seeing up to 80% deaths from rural parts.
As cities ‘stabilise’ in Maharashtra, Covid cases & toll in peri-urban, rural areas a concern
MUMBAI: Covid-19 is raging in the peri-urban and rural areas of many districts in Maharashtra even as cases have dipped or plateaued in cities adjoining them.
At least 32% of the state’s daily detections are now coming from rural areas, while some districts are seeing up to 80% deaths from rural parts.
Municipal corporation areas in 17 districts are now recording fewer cases than their neighbouring semi-urban or rural pockets.

Nashik, Ahmednagar, Jalgaon, Solapur, Kolhapur, Sangli, Aurangabad, Latur, Nanded, Akola and Amravati have seen cases declining in their corporation areas but surging in rest of the district.
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Experts say a similar trend was seen in the first wave: cases started with cities, then travelled to tier-II cities and semi-urban areas before reaching villages.
Ahmednagar is one of the districts witnessing the transmission away from corporation limits.
On Friday, areas outside the corporation recorded 2,958 cases and a dozen deaths compared to 245 cases and two deaths in city limits.
Similarly, while 128 cases and 13 deaths were detected from Solapur corporation limits, the rest of the district saw 2,070 cases and 59 deaths.

In Kolhapur too, most daily detections are from areas outside the city; on Friday, the city added 310 cases and four deaths while rest of the district saw 1,211 cases and five deaths.
Civic surgeon of Amravati Dr Shyamsundar Nikam said 80% of daily deaths are now from rural areas of the district.
Rural regions and villages not affected in the first wave have been hit hard in the second, said Solapur civil surgeon Dr Pradeep Dhele.
“Worry is people in villages stay home and reach hospitals when they are critical,” he said.
The case fatality rate of smaller districts is a cause of concern already.
The weekly death rate as on May 11 of Nandurbar and Nanded was over 5%, while Latur and Osmanabad had over 2.5% - the state’s average being 1.3%.

A technical advisor to the government, Dr Subhash Salunkhe, said it was worrying that a higher share of cases was coming from less urbanised areas as that has a direct impact on mortality.
“Kolhapur, for instance, has a mortality rate of 3.2%. Even districts like Sangli have a high mortality rate because smaller towns or rural areas, which lack good medical infrastructure and trained manpower, are contributing to fatalities,” he said.
Dr Pradeep Awate, the state’ surveillance officer, confirmed 30-32% cases are now coming from rural areas.
“We have decentralised Covid care centres and started them at village level,” he said. District health officer of Chandrapur Dr Raj Gehlot said 38% of deaths in the district are from rural areas, hence they have started isolation centres in schools within villages.
But do they have the trained manpower, asked Dr Abhijit More of Jan Swasthya Abhiyan.
“It is true zilla parishads have empowered gram panchayats to start Covid centres, but they need doctors and trained nurses,” he added.
Salunkhe said cities like Mumbai and Pune can never rest with their decline in cases till the fringes are out of the wave.
The weekly projection made by the public health department for districts like Kolhapur, Satara, Sangli, Chandrapur and Akola states these districts are likely to face shortage of ICU beds, oxygen-supported beds and ICU beds by May 23 if cases increase at the same rate.
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