Association Between PM2.5 Induced Diseases and COVID-19: A Systematic Review

Abstract

A novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) caused a global pandemic that started in China (Wuhan, Hubei region) in December 2019, called Coronavirus disease. This systematic review intends to evaluate the correlation of pre-existing particulate matter (PM2.5) induced comorbidities along with COVID-19 spread and mortality. A search was operated to report the association between PM2.5 and COVID-19 outbreak and evaluating the PM2.5 related disease affected by COVID-19 infection. The research was conducted in consent with the criteria of PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews, and Meta-Analyses). We filtered the review and research articles published only in the English language and selected these keywords: air pollution, particulate matter, COVID-19, health impact. We obtained a total of 27 appropriate published articles in their final version. Additional articles were rectified by searching through Scopus, PubMed and Google Scholar. We concluded that the values of coagulation biomarkers in all SARS-CoV-2 patients were considerably higher as compared with healthy people. It was noted that Hypertension, Diabetes, COPD, CVD, Asthma and Cancer possess an evident relation with COVID-19 severity. Globally, air pollutants affect the body’s immunity, leading to people being more susceptible to pathogens. In addition, transmission from person-to-person dynamic of the new respiratory virus was considered the environmental factors’ role in accelerating coronavirus spread and its lethality. COVID-19 patients with pre-existing comorbidities induced by particulate matter show a high risk of mortality as compared to COVID-19 patients without these comorbidities.