Despite these positive indicators, India had the highest number of undernourished people in the Asia pacific region. And even though undernourishment was largely seen among low income families, it was surprisingly also observed among Indians who were from higher socio-economic classes. Growing fast food consumption, unhealthy diet trends and an inactive lifestyle were some of the main contributing factors for this. A large-scale survey from 2019 found that 70 percent of Indian women and 59 percent Indian men were unhealthy based on their diet and lifestyle. Heart disease has been one of the leading causes of death in India for over two decades, along with an increasing propensity for cancer and diabetes.
India has made significant progress in reducing the number of vector-borne disease fatalities, but it remains a problem in many regions of the country. In 2020, the country recorded the highest number of malaria cases throughout the Asia Pacific region. Other life-threatening diseases that were prevalent in the country were dengue, typhoid, tuberculosis, and HIV-AIDS. In addition to this, the share of mental health disorders among adults stood at around 14.3 percent. The most observed issues were idiopathic developmental intellectual disorders and anxiety disorders. Even then, the awareness about mental health and access to help was relatively low in the country leading to high suicide rates.
In 2020, the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak came as a blow to India just like the rest of the world. The first cases were reported in the country in late February and since then, the number of infected people has been growing consistently. To control the spread of the virus, a strict lockdown was implemented from mid-March until late May. Even then, local outbreaks have continued to spread. As of June 2020, the country had reported over 9,500 fatalities due to COVID-19 and over 169 thousand recoveries.
