[아시아엔=박명윤 보건학박사, 한국보건영양연구소 이사장] In the 20th century, the fatal event that took a large number of human lives was not a war, but a respiratory disease. In other words, following the Spanish flu in 1918 (with an estimated 50 million deaths), the Hong Kong flu in 1968, the swine flu in 2009, and the Corona 19 in 2019, the interval between epidemics continues to shorten. Bill Gates has raised the possibility of a pandemic caused by a respiratory virus since 2015.
Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the top authority on infectious diseases in the United States, said that the death toll from the novel coronavirus in the United States surpassed 1 million on December 12, 2022, “many of them were avoided.” “The one million deaths are actually historic,” Fauci said.
“If people had been vaccinated, at least a quarter of the deaths, or 250,000, could have been avoided,” Fauci said. He said, “As we enter autumn and winter, there is a risk and possibility that the spread of COVID-19 will surge. We need to prepare for vaccination, booster shots, and treatment optimization.” He repeatedly urged Congress to pass the $22.5 billion in additional COVID-19 response funding that the Biden administration has requested from Congress.
Seoul Boramae Hospital Renal Internal Medicine Professor Lee Jeong-pyo and Seoul National University Graduate School of Public Health Professor Kim Ho (health statistics) reported the results of a study stating that people with underlying diseases may have a significantly increased risk of death when infected with COVID-19, so special attention should be paid to prevention and management. announced. A research team led by Professors Jeong-pyo Lee and Ho Kim conducted a study on 7,590 men and women who tested positive for COVID-19 in Korea in January-May 2020. The study analyzed the risk of death from COVID-19 by underlying disease through clinical data of 225 patients confirmed to have died within the observation period among all COVID-19 patients. According to the results of multivariate analysis using the Cox Proportional-Hazard Model, the research team found that the risk of death significantly increases even in the presence of underlying diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, heart failure, various cancers, and chronic nephritis. confirmed to be
COVID-19 patients with end-stage renal disease were five times more likely to die than those without underlying disease. Patients with low immunity due to reduced kidney function, which filters metabolic wastes from the body, were particularly vulnerable to the risk of COVID-19. It was 1.5 times higher in hypertensive patients and 1.8 times higher in diabetic patients. Corona 19 patients with high blood pressure or cerebrovascular disease also had an average hospital stay longer than general patients.
A team of researchers from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and a team from King’s College London conducted a meta-analysis of 158 published studies so far. As a result of analyzing data from 270,000 people collected around the world, the risk of death in diabetic patients is 1.97 times higher when infected with COVID-19. The probability of being classified as a severe patient reached 2.88 times.
Diabetes alone is rare and often accompanied by other risk factors, such as old age or obesity, which increases the risk of death significantly compared to younger people without any disease. High-risk factors such as diabetes must be lived with for a lifetime, but proper blood sugar management can lower the risk of death from acute diseases such as COVID-19 as well as chronic complications.
In a study funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the United States, the research team focused on monitoring more than 4,000 people in about 1,400 households in 12 U.S. cities for 2020-2021. The study found that people with food allergies were less likely to contract COVID-19, while obese people with a high body mass index (BMI) were more likely to get the disease.
People with food allergies are less likely to get COVID-19 because the level of the ACE2 receptor protein on the airway cell surface drops, making it difficult for the virus to bind to this receptor and invade human cells. Type 2 inflammation, a hallmark of allergic diseases, can lower levels of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor protein. When the level of the ACE2 receptor protein falls, the ability of the virus to infect cells also decreases.
Anthony Fauci, director of the NIAID study, said: “These findings reminds us of the importance of immunization for children and the importance of public health measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus in children.” “The association between food allergy and risk of coronavirus infection and the association between body mass index and risk of coronavirus infection are worth further study, respectively,” he added.
Dennis Nash, a professor of epidemiology at the City of New York University of Public Health, conducted a survey of 1,030 New Yorkers on May 7-8, and 22.1% of them were confirmed with COVID-19 between April 23 and May 8. If you substitute this sample for all New Yorkers, it would take about 1.5 million people in two weeks. However, during the same period, the official number of confirmed cases in New York City stood at 49,253, only one-third of the study results.
The increase in self-diagnosis is pointed out as one of the reasons for such a large difference between research results and official counts. This is because self-diagnosis is not usually included in the count. Also, even if you have symptoms or come into contact with a confirmed person, you may not be tested because there is no information or you are exhausted from the prolonged COVID-19. Another reason to avoid testing is to stay at home without going to work or school if confirmed. Experts point out that undercounting may not realize the severity of the spread, and may make it difficult for health authorities to respond properly.
