The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has already infected more than 8.3 million and killed over 451,000 people across the world, making it one of the biggest threats to human life in recent times.
Now, a new study, published this week in The Lancet Global Health, has shown that at least one in five people (approx. 350 million people) is at risk of falling critically ill from COVID-19 due to the underlying medical conditions, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, lung disease, and diabetes.
The study researchers wrote, “It is beyond the scope of this analysis to find out if those persons at risk of getting a severe case of the disease could have already been infected.”
“The study is to point out the vulnerable population who need to be better “shielded” against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection using all possible measures such as vaccination when it is available,” they added.
The researchers said there is no “one size fits all” approach that is appropriate with the COVID-19 pandemic, explaining that several factors play a key role in the prognosis of the infection in different populations, such as socioeconomic status of the person, race, ethnicities, obesity, and lifestyle behaviors.
Public Health Researcher at Columbia University Nina Schwalbe wrote a comment accompanying the article, stating, “This begins to move us past the one-size-fits-all approach.”
“The more precision we can get at who’s at risk of hospitalization, the better we can work with those people and tailor our response appropriately,” she added.
The study also found that the risk of severe COVID-19 infection increased with age and men were twice at risk of falling critically ill from the disease compared to women.
Furthermore, the study found that the risk of severe disease increased six times if a person suffers from diabetes and heart disease and the risk of death increased 12 times among people diabetes and heart disease.
The researchers found that high-risk individuals, as well as healthy individuals, would require hospitalization, with nearly 350 million people expected to be hospitalized with COVID-19. In general, “the share of the population at increased risk was highest in countries with older populations, African countries with high HIV/AIDS prevalence, and small island nations with high diabetes prevalence,” the researchers wrote.
