Type 2 diabetes as a major risk factor for COVID-19 severity: a meta-analysis
Lana Catani Ferreira Pinto, Marcello Casaccia Bertoluci
Abstract
C oronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has recently emerged as a rapidly spreading disease, affecting more than 100 countries worldwide and reaching pandemic proportions. The severity of COVID-19 ranges from a mild, self-limiting flu-like illness to a devastating pneumonia culminating in respiratory failure and death. Individuals with diabetes are particularly vulnerable to some respiratory viral infections, such as influenza A (H1N1) infection (1), the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) (2), and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) (3). A higher mortality rate was recently suggested in patients with COVID-19 who had preexisting diabetes (4); according to the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, COVID-19 case-fatality rates in patients with diabetes were around 7.3%, versus 2.3% in the general Chinese population.