MONDAY, March 7, 2022 (HealthDay Information) — Individuals who have been born with a coronary heart defect have a virtually doubled threat for extreme COVID-19 sickness or dying and must get vaccinated, put on masks and take different steps to guard themselves, researchers report.
These sufferers on the highest threat for extreme COVID-19 have been 50 and older, males, and people with different well being circumstances akin to coronary heart failure, pulmonary hypertension, Down syndrome, diabetes or weight problems, in line with the examine.
“Individuals with heart defects must be inspired to obtain the COVID-19 vaccines and boosters and to proceed to observe further preventive measures for COVID-19, akin to mask-wearing and bodily distancing,” stated examine creator Karrie Downing. She’s an epidemiologist on the U.S. Nationwide Middle on Beginning Defects and Developmental Disabilities and the COVID-19 Response Workforce on the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
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“Individuals with coronary heart defects also needs to seek the advice of with their well being care groups about further steps to handle private dangers associated to COVID-19, given the considerably elevated threat of extreme an infection and severe issues,” Downing added.
The examine analyzed information on greater than 235,600 hospitalized COVID-19 sufferers in the US collected from March 2020 to January 2021. Of these sufferers, 0.2% had a congenital coronary heart defect.
Whereas 68% of the COVID-19 sufferers with a coronary heart defect additionally had at the least one different well being situation, the speed was 59% amongst these and not using a congenital coronary heart defect.
The examine discovered that 54% of these with congenital coronary heart defects and 43% of these and not using a defect have been admitted to intensive care; 24% of these with congenital coronary heart defects and 15% of these and not using a defect required a ventilator to breathe, and 11% of these with congenital coronary heart defects and seven% of these and not using a defect died throughout hospitalization.
Sufferers with congenital coronary heart defects remained at excessive threat for extreme COVID-19 even after they have been divided into classes by age or different well being circumstances.
The findings have been printed March 7 within the journal Circulation.
“Extra work is required to establish why the scientific course of COVID-19 illness leads to considerably worse outcomes for some hospitalized sufferers with threat components for vital COVID-19 sickness, like coronary heart defects, and never for others,” Downing stated in a journal information launch.
There are greater than a dozen forms of congenital heart defects, that are the commonest delivery defects worldwide with a prevalence of 157 per 100,000 in 2017, in line with the American Coronary heart Affiliation.
There’s extra on congenital coronary heart defects on the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
SOURCE: Circulation, information launch, March 7, 2022
This text initially ran on consumer.healthday.com.