By Business India Editorial

Consulting firm Samhita, that works with companies to develop impactful corporate social responsibility initiatives, has in a study titled Chasing the Virus, calculated that India will have over 100,000 fatalities from Covid-19 by end-September 2020.

According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare data, total deaths due to Covid 19 stood at 69,561 on 5 September.

The analysis further shows that between 1 July 2020 and 17 August 2020, almost all new active cases and more than half of fatalities due to Covid-19 occurred in districts outside the big 11 cities.

This would imply that the virus had moved to the smaller districts and governments, philanthropies and corporate CSR need to meet this challenge by focusing on the smaller districts.

"With only 20 per cent of doctors situated in rural areas, availability of trained medical staff is an issue. There is also the issue of lack of adequate medical equipment and infrastructure which are crucial to help patients," it adds.

The worst affected states are Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Kerala, Bihar and Odisha.

The emerging situation is likely to necessitate a redirection of collaborative efforts, by channelling resources into smaller districts.

India has the highest daily new case among all countries in the world (it has held that position for the most part of August). The first 1.6 million cases in India took about six months, the next 1.6 million cases have occurred in less than one month.

Samhita.org is a philanthropic initiative of the Nadathur Trust; a charitable trust. The Nadathur Group is a private investment firm and a family office established by N.S. Raghavan, one of the co-founders of Infosys Technologies.

The study was conducted by the India Protectors Alliance, an initiative of Samhita, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and private sector RBL Bank.