With the supports and coordination of the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China, Academician Zhong Nanshan led to collect the clinical information of 1,590 patients with Covid-19 (hereinafter referred to Covid-19 infected patients) from 575 hospitals in 31 provinces/autonomous regions/municipalities across the country from December 11, 2019 to January 31, 2020. The research paper was published in the European Respiratory Journal (ERJ) (IF=11.807) as an original article.

Figure 1 ERJ article and website screenshot

Link:https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/early/2020/03/17/13993003.00547-2020

Main highlights of the research

1) It is clarified that comorbidity spectra mainly include hypertension (16.9%), diabetes (8.2%), cerebrovascular disease (1.9%), hepatitis B (1.8%), COPD (1.5%), chronic kidney disease (1.3%), malignant tumors (1.1%), but with a low proportion of immunodeficiency (0.2%);

2) After correction of age and smoking status, it was found that COPD, diabetes, hypertension, and malignant tumors are closely related to the clinical prognosis of Covid-19 infection;

3) It is pointed out that the Covid-19 infected patients with at least one comorbidity have significantly higher risks of admission to the ICU, invasive ventilation, and death than those without any comorbidity;

4) It is clarified that as the number of comorbidities increases, Covid-19 infected patients are subjected to higher risks of admission to ICU, invasive mechanical ventilation, and death (Figure 2).

Figure 2 Correlation between comorbidities and clinical prognosis of Covid-19 infected patients

Clinical significance of this research

The results of this research suggest that Covid-19 infected patients with at least one comorbidity show higher disease severity. When clinicians receive patients, they need to carefully collect the medical history for proper triage. Covid-19 infected patients with multiple comorbidities should be provided with adequate personal protection and closer medical observation and intervention.

Content Sharing and Influence of the Paper on Covid-19 Comorbidities

After analyzing and collating the data, Zhong led the team to immediately upload a copy of the paper to the MedRxiV, and published the research results to the whole society as soon as possible, which immediately caused wide concerns in the whole society (15,700 PVs and nearly 16,800 downloads as of March 27) (Figure 3).

(https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.25.20027664v1.article-metrics)

Figure 3 The paper on Covid-19 attracted great attention on MedRxiV