Severe COVID-19 infection may occur in 1 out of 5 people, claimed by a new study. According to The New York Times' latest report, one of the underlying health conditions that can worsen cases of the coronavirus may be found in roughly 1.7 billion people, as claimed by a new analysis.
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Healthy older individuals, a group is also known to be at risk because of their age, who don't have any underlying health conditions were excluded in the new study, which was published by The Lancet Global Health on June 15. Risk factors such as obesity and poverty, which can influence a person's access to treatment and susceptibility to disease, were also not included in the study.
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However, the first author of the study, Andrew Clark of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that health officials' containment efforts on people vulnerable to the virus's most dangerous effects can be improved by such data, allowing them to eventually prioritize those people who really need to have COVID-19 vaccine.
"Now, there's a better understanding of the numbers involved," said Dr. Clark.
The researchers used the information provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other health agencies in the United States and Britain to compile 11 categories of underlying conditions that may increase the risk of severe coronavirus cases that requires hospitalization.
Why 1 out of 5 People, at risk of severe COVID-19?
People who are undergoing immunity-weakening treatments like chemotherapy or those with autoimmune disorders who need to take immunosuppressive drugs regularly are included in the patients involved in the study. Dr. Lona Mody, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan who was not involved in the study, warned that in the context of COVID-19, not all of the conditions have been observed and studied properly.
On the other hand, a new coronavirus vaccine will be trialed by the Imperial College London. According to The Guardian's latest report, Imperial College London's researchers will begin testing the new coronavirus vaccine this week, which will be trialed in 300 people.
The researchers will inject two doses of vaccine to each of the healthy participants, aged between 18 and 17 years old. Once the vaccine was proven effective, the researchers hope it will be administered to 6,000 volunteers. Synthetic strands of genetic code based on the genetic materials of Sars-CoV-2 were used by Imperial College of London instead of using a weakened form of the illness.
"Is that protection against infection? Is it protection against illness? Is it protection against severe disease? It's quite possible a vaccine that only protects against severe disease would be very useful," said the Imperial College London professor leading vaccine's development, Robin Shattock, stating that early protective vaccines might not completely stop a person contracting the virus.
