Evidence is growing that people with an underlying condition of diabetes are the most at risk of death from Covid 19 and that 1 in 10 patients die within a week.
As the virus has made its way around the world the amount of data and number of studies have grown. They show the mortality rates from Covid 19 among people with diabetes are the highest. The data comes from China, Italy, the USA and the UK all suggesting that individuals with diabetes have an increased risk of developing more severe cases of COVID-19.
CAPTION: “This research shows the extent of the risk of Coronavirus for people with diabetes”. Professor Jonathan Valhabhji.
In the UK nearly a third of deaths in hospital from Covid 19 were people with diabetes as the underlying condition, while a French study found one in ten coronavirus patients with diabetes died within the first seven days of hospitalization, and one in five needed a ventilator to breathe.
Risks for People with Diabetes
In an NHS study conducted with Imperial College London people with diabetes were found to be twice as likely to die from Coronavirus as those without it. It also found that those with Type 1 were three and a half times more likely to die.
PDGN Secretary General Adrian Sanders says these findings are very frightening for people with diabetes and should be a concern to those who handle health care budgets:
“As yet there are no studies to show people with any particular type of diabetes suffer more than any other, but the fact that those with the condition take up so many hospital beds and will require long-term support if they survive must be a worry for everyone.
CAPTION: “These findings are very frightening for people with diabetes and should be a concern to those who handle health care budgets:” PDGN Secretary General Adrian Sanders
“Too many Governments are treating this as two separate pandemics with diabetes on hold while Covid 19 is addressed. We need our Parliamentarians advocating to ensure their Governments recognise this as two pandemics colliding and to not take pressure off one thinking it assists with confronting the other.”
“They must take the link seriously not just in the hopefully short-term while Covid 19 is in circulation, but permanently, and to recognise that people from South Asian and black African and Caribbean descent have a higher risk of becoming diabetic,” Sanders concluded.
Advocacy Action: Ask your Government about the number of people with diabetes who have or had Covid 19? Ask what action they are taking in light of the link between diabetes and Covid 19?