COVID-19: Over a quarter of patients who died in UK's hospitals were diabetic

UK’s National Health Service (NHS) said that a quarter of people who died in hospitals due to COVID-19 were diabetics, releasing first breakdown of underlying health conditions among fatalities. According to NHS data, 5,873 people, out of 22,332 patients who died in hospital in England between March 31 and May 12, suffered from eir 1 or 2 diabetes.

second-highest underlying medical condition was dementia, followed by serious breathing problems and chronic kidney disease. latest figures have corroborated earlier reports which claimed patients with underlying medical conditions are at higher risk of succumbing to infectious disease.

Affects multiple organs

vel coronavirus can infect multiple organs throughout body including lungs, pharynx, heart, liver, brain, kidneys, and intestines, researchers said in different reports. While SARS-CoV-2 has been classified as a respiratory virus, detection of viral RNA in faecal specimens suggest that it might cause enteric infection.

According to a report published in Nature Medicine, some COVID-19 patients have suffered gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. Jie Zhou and colleagues at University of Hong Kong demonstrated active replication of SARS-CoV-2 in human intestinal orgaids and isolation of infectious virus from stool specimen of a patient with diarrheal COVID-19.

“Although t as common as respiratory symptoms, gastrointestinal symptoms have been present in a substantial proportion of patients with COVID-19,” wrote researchers.

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A separate report, published in New England Journal of Medicine, highlighted that virus preferentially infects cells in respiratory tract but its direct affinity for organs or than lungs remains poorly defined. researchers quantified viral lo in autopsy tissue samples obtained from 22 patients died from COVID-19. As per report, 17 patients out of 22 demonstrated more than two coexisting conditions and SARS-CoV-2 seemed to affect kidneys more than any or n-respiratory organs, even in patients without a history of chronic kidney disease.

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(Im credit: AP)