NEW DELHI: The maximum number of people affected by covid-19 in India are in the age group of 21-40, the Union health ministry said on Saturday.

While the elderly are said to be the most vulnerable to the disease, people above 60 years accounted for only 17% of total cases in the country.

“We have done the age profile analysis of covid-19 cases in India. We found that 9% of positive cases are in between 0- 20 years, 42% cases are in the age group of 21-40, 33% in 41-60 and 17% in the people above 60 years of age," said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary, ministry of health and family welfare.

Also, India reported 58 critical cases of covid-19 and these were found in Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, and Delhi. “As far as deaths are concerned, we have noticed that advanced age and co-morbidities such as diabetes, kidney and cardiac ailments played an important role in deaths," said Agarwal. “We are dealing with a highly infectious and communicable disease. We are battling with this on a day-to-day basis. Still, the case doubling rate in India is lesser than other countries," he added.

India has so far reported 2,902 cases of novel coronavirus infections, of which 601 have been reported in the last 24 hours, according to health ministry data.

Referring to the Tablighi Jamaat congregation that was held last month in Nizamuddin Markaz in the national capital, Agarwal said of the total cases in the country around 30% are linked to this particular place.

“Till now we have found cases related to Tablighi Jamaat from 17 states. About 1,023 covid-19 positive cases have been found to be linked to this event. We couldn’t manage and understand this event and the cases increased due to this," said Agarwal.

The ministry added that 22,000 contacts related to the religious event have been quarantined and many others are being traced.

The government's policy think tank Niti Aayog last week had called upon doctors to work as volunteers for handling the outbreak. The government has realised that cases surge, public health facilities will face tremendous pressure. “This overwhelming burden may not be met by the available doctors in the public health system. The central and state governments are augmenting and expediting increase in healthcare services in every part of the country," Niti Aayog had said.

“Around 30,000 doctors from private and sector, retired and from Army have volunteered to help in our fight against coronavirus. Our efforts have to be stringent and coordinated to deal with the disease," said Agarwal, adding that the government is also increasing testing capacities progressively with 10,000 tests being conducted every day.

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