While India currently stands at the fifth place at the global stage, in the list of top ten worst-hit countries by COVID-19, with males playing a larger part in the country's total infected rate, the recent study that carried out by the researchers had revealed that women in India would be more vulnerable and possess risk than men when it comes to the death caused by the pandemic. 

Titled as 'Equal risk, Unequal burden? Gender differentials in COVID-19 mortality in India', the study carried out by the researchers of the Institute of Economic Growth in Delhi, Institute of Health Management Research in Jaipur, and Harvard University in the United States has found out that women in India are at high risk of death and the researchers attributed the risk to the prevailing disparities of healthcare and the nutritional status of the women living in the country. 

According to the study, the mortality rate due to the pandemic is higher among women than men, although men had contributed more cases in the country. The study was done based on the mortality rate the country had reported until May 20 when the country's total tally of affected cases stood at 1,12,027 with 3,433 deaths and India had a mortality rate of 3.1 percent during that period. 

The study showed that the tally of 1,12,027 includes 73,654 males and 38,373 females while the death toll of 3,433 includes 2,165 males and 1,268 females. Although the numbers suggest that males are under high risk, the study revealed that 3.3 percent of total women's tally infected to the virus had succumbed while it stood at 2.9 percent for males. 

The findings had signaled that the women's mortality rate is relatively high than that of men. Nearly 3.2 percent of women between the age of 40 to 49 had succumbed to the virus while the rate stood at 2.1 percent for men and all deaths between the age group of  5 to 19 in the country till May 20 were women. 

The study further stated that, in the age group of 5-19, no infected male had died while the death rate among females at this same age group was 0.6 percent. Through the findings, the researchers studied that women have a relatively high risk of COVID-19 death amid peaking cases among men. The state of women in India is completely the opposite of how it remains for women of other countries.

Disparities over availing equal healthcare and nutrition in India would be one of the major factors why women are at high risk due to the pandemic as these would less likely shield them from getting victimized. At the global stage, in the worst affected countries, men are at high-risk as they develop smoking, co-morbid conditions like diabetes and hypertension at a very young age than women.

As of Wednesday morning, India has reported 2,76,583 cases so far of which 1,33,632 are active, 1,35,206 have been discharged while 7745 had succumbed to the virus. On June 2nd, the Union Health Ministry said that the country has reported the mortality rate of 2.82 percent, which, it claimed, as one of the lowest in the country.