India, Sept. 11 -- Death rates from chronic diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and stroke increased in India in the decade leading up to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a new paper published in The Lancet on Tuesday, even as they fell in four out of five countries covered by the study.

The increase was larger for Indian females than for Indian males, for whom the probability of dying from non-communicable diseases (NCD) between birth and age 80 years increased by only 0.1 percentage points. The increase in the probability of dying from an NCD between birth and age 80 years was driven by an increase in mortality above age 40 years for females and above age 55 years for males, according to the paper.

The authors attributed the in...