PERSEVERE OR PERIL: DIABETES CARE IN TIMES OF COVID-19

Abstract

The peril of coronavirus infection started in November, 2019, in Wuhan, China ( 1. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, China: The Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Emergency Response Epidemiology Team The Epidemiological Characteristics of an Outbreak of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Diseases (COVID-19) in China.2. China CDC Weekly, China2020: 113-122 Google Scholar ) and advanced to become a global pandemic ( 2. WHO. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Situation Report-89. Available at: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200418-sitrep-89-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=3643dd38_2. Accessed April 18, 2020. Google Scholar ). Everybody, everywhere, has been equally at risk without discrimination for the novel coronavirus of zoonotic origin called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) or 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), causing coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The number of COVID-19 patients exponentially increased due to a high propensity for person-to-person transmission in asymptomatic and symptomatic individuals. Although the estimated overall mortality is not high (~2%) ( 1. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, China: The Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Emergency Response Epidemiology Team The Epidemiological Characteristics of an Outbreak of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Diseases (COVID-19) in China.2. China CDC Weekly, China2020: 113-122 Google Scholar ), the total number of fatalities increasing daily has been terrifying the world ( 2. WHO. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Situation Report-89. Available at: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200418-sitrep-89-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=3643dd38_2. Accessed April 18, 2020. Google Scholar ). The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases reported up to April 18, 2020, in the United States (U.S.) was about 700,000 with about 35,000 deaths ( 3. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, USA. Cases of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) in the U.S. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html. Accessed April 18, 2020. Google Scholar ), whereas on a worldwide scale more than 2 million cases have been confirmed, with almost 150,000 deaths ( 2. WHO. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Situation Report-89. Available at: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200418-sitrep-89-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=3643dd38_2. Accessed April 18, 2020. Google Scholar ). Patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) appeared to be particularly vulnerable to morbidity and mortality from COVID-19 ( 4. Wu C. Chen X. Cai Y. et al. Risk factors associated with acute respiratory distress syndrome and death in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 pneumonia in Wuhan, China. In press, 2020 Crossref Scopus (4936) Google Scholar , 5. Wang F. Yang Y. Dong K. et al. Clinical characteristics of 28 patients with diabetes and covid-19 in Wuhan, China. 2020; 26: 668-674 Google Scholar ). The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) places diabetes in a category of high risk for COVID-19: “Older adults and people who have severe underlying medical conditions like heart or lung disease or diabetes seem to be at higher risk for developing more serious complications from COVID-19 illness ( 3. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, USA. Cases of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) in the U.S. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html. Accessed April 18, 2020. Google Scholar ).”