'Common comorbidities include diabetes, high BP'

New Delhi: More than half of COVID-19 patients admitted to city hospitals like Fortis and All India Institute of Medical Sciences have comorbidities such as diabetes, high blood pressure and chronic lung illnesses, according to data from both of these COVID-19 dedicated healthcare facilities.

At Fortis Hospital, more than 50 per cent COVID-19 patients admitted with comorbidities had the above-mentioned health issues. Besides these, some patients were also found to be on dialysis or had liver issues.

"In our hospital, we saw uncontrolled diabetic patients, meaning their sugar level was not controlled at home or they knew they were diabetic and were not taking proper measures. In those patients we saw more pneumonia," Dr Richa Sareen, Consultant at Pulmonology and Critical Care Medicine said.

She added that the hospital at Vasant Kunj also witnessed an increase in the flow of Coronavirus cases at the end of June, which have however gone down since. "We had the maximum number of COVID patients in June end when Delhi was showing 3,000 to 4,000 patients per day. However, in the last one week, the number of cases has gone down," she added.

Meanwhile, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) saw the same trend, where maximum COVID-19 patients had the same health issues. "You can say that the maximum patients admitted had serious health issues, most of them being diabetes, cancer or some other problem," said a senior doctor on the condition of anonymity.

However, it cannot be ruled out that a lot of young people are also getting pneumonia from the virus, raising concerns that the contagious disease may be affecting younger people with the same intensity. But Dr Sareen ruled that out, "A lot of young people are also getting pneumonia but they are recovering fast, as they are young and their immunity levels are good. It is mostly the elderly who are having difficulty recovering from it."

Meanwhile, doctors have considered the uncertainty of the virus, adding that patients — either mild or severe — have new or different symptoms, making previous research irrelevant to a certain extent. "In the last few weeks, new symptoms have been recognised. Anything and everything is now turning out to be COVID-19. Meanwhile, three new symptoms have been identified, one is a running nose, another is the headache and body ache - even though patients don't have a fever, they have severe body ache — while the third is diarrhea, which was not recognised earlier," said Dr Sareen.