Tuesday, July 5, 2022
No Result
View All Result
Medical Finance
  • Home
  • News
  • Interviews
  • Mediknowledge
  • Insights From Industry
  • Thought Leaders
  • Coronavirus
  • Whitepapers
  • Home
  • News
  • Interviews
  • Mediknowledge
  • Insights From Industry
  • Thought Leaders
  • Coronavirus
  • Whitepapers
No Result
View All Result
Medical Finance
No Result
View All Result
Home Coronavirus

Long-term exposure to air pollutants may increase the incidence of COVID-19

by Medical Finance
in Coronavirus
Long-term exposure to air pollutants may increase the incidence of COVID-19
9
SHARES
102
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Long term exposure to ambient air pollution may heighten the risk of COVID-19 infection, suggests research published online in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine.

The association was strongest for particulate matter, with an average annual rise of 1 µg/m3 linked to a 5% increase in the infection rate. This equates to an extra 294 cases/100,000 people a year, indicate the findings, which focus on the inhabitants of one Northern Italian city.

While further research is needed to confirm cause and effect, the findings should reinforce efforts to cut air pollution, say the researchers.

Northern Italy has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, with Lombardy the worst affected region in terms of both cases and deaths. Several reasons have been suggested for this, including different testing strategies and demographics.

But estimates from the European Union Environmental Agency show that most of the 3.9 million Europeans residing in areas where air pollution exceeds European limits live in Northern Italy.

Recent research has implicated airborne pollution as a risk factor for COVID-19 infection, but study design flaws and data capture only up to mid 2020 have limited the findings, say the researchers.

To get round these issues, they looked at long term exposure to airborne pollutants and patterns of COVID-19 infection from the start of the pandemic to March 2021 among the residents of Varese, the eighth largest city in Lombardy.

Among the 81,543 residents as of 31 December 2017, more than 97% were successfully linked to the 2018 annual average exposure levels for the main air pollutants, based on home address.

Regional COVID-19 infection data and information on hospital discharge and outpatient drug prescriptions were gathered for 62,848 adults yet to be infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19 at the end of 2019 until the end of March 2021.

Official figures show that only 3.5% of the population in the entire region were fully vaccinated by the end of March 2021.

Estimates of annual and seasonal average levels of five airborne pollutants were available for 2018 over an area more than 40 km wide: particulate matter (PM2.5, PM10); nitrogen dioxide (NO2); nitric oxide (NO); and ozone (O3).

The average PM2.5 and NO2 values were 12.5 and 20.1 µg/m3, respectively. The corresponding population-weighted average annual exposures in Italy for the same year were 15.5 and 20.1 µg/m3, respectively.

Some 4408 new COVID-19 cases, which were registered between 25 February 2020 and 13 March 2021, were included in the study. This equates to a rate of 6005 cases/100,000 population/year.

Population density wasn’t associated with a heightened risk of infection. But living in a residential care home was associated with a more than 10-fold heightened risk of the infection.

Drug treatment for diabetes, high blood pressure, and obstructive airway diseases, as well as a history of stroke were also associated with, respectively, a 17%, 12%, 17%, and 29%, heightened risk.

After accounting for age, gender, and care home residency, plus concurrent long term conditions, averages, both PM2.5 and PM10 were significantly associated with an increased COVID-19 infection rate.

Every 1 µg/m3 increase in long term exposure to PM2.5 was associated with a 5% increase in the number of new cases of COVID-19 infection, equivalent to 294 extra cases per 100,000 of the population/year.

Applying seasonal rather than annual averages yielded similar results, and these findings were confirmed in further analyses that excluded care home residents and further adjusted for local levels of deprivation and use of public transport. Similar findings were observed for PM10, NO2 and NO.

The observed associations were even more noticeable among older age groups, indicating a stronger effect of pollutants on the COVID-19 infection rate among 55–64 and 65–74 year olds, suggest the researchers.

This is an observational study, and as such, can’t establish cause. And although the researchers considered various potentially influential factors, they weren’t able to account for mobility, social interaction, humidity, temperature and certain underlying conditions, such as mental ill health and kidney disease.

Long term exposure to air pollution heightens the risk of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases through persistent inflammation and compromised immunity. These same pathways may therefore be involved in the link between air pollution and higher COVID-19 infection rates, suggest the researchers.

Our findings provide the first solid empirical evidence for the hypothesised pathway linking long-term exposure to air pollution with the incidence of COVID-19, and deserve future generalisation in different contexts. Meanwhile, government efforts to further reduce air pollution levels can help to mitigate the public health burden of COVID-19.”

Source:

Journal reference:

Veronesi, G., et al. (2021) Long-term exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 incidence: a prospective study of residents in the city of Varese, Northern Italy. Occupational and Environmental Medicine. doi.org/10.1136/oemed-2021-107833.

Total
0
Shares
Share 0
Tweet 0
Pin it 0
Share 0
Medical Finance

Medical Finance

Related Posts

Study: ACE2 is necessary for SARS-CoV-2 infection and sensing by macrophages but not sufficient for productive viral replication. Image Credit: PHOTOCREO Michal Bednarek/Shutterstock

Study explores macrophage susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 virions

by Medical Finance
July 5, 2022
0

A recent study posted to the bioRxiv* preprint server investigated the susceptibility of macrophages to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus...

Study: Methylene Blue Is a Nonspecific Protein-Protein Interaction Inhibitor with Potential for Repurposing as an Antiviral for COVID-19. Image Credit: Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock

Study finds methylene blue is a low-micromolar inhibitor of the the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and ACE2 interaction

by Medical Finance
July 5, 2022
0

The rapid outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome‐coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2), a novel coronavirus, caused the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Among...

Study: Determinants of passive antibody effectiveness in SARS-CoV-2 infection. Image Credit: LuXiFeR Bowlo/Shutterstock

How the timing and dose of different types of passive antibody treatments predict protection from SARS-CoV-2 infection

by Medical Finance
July 5, 2022
0

Scientists have stated that the levels of neutralizing antibodies are strongly correlated with the prevention of symptomatic and severe coronavirus...

Blood proteoforms may help predict liver transplant rejection

Liver disease negatively impacted by lifestyle changes during the pandemic

by Medical Finance
July 5, 2022
0

Liver disease negatively impacted by lifestyle changes during the first year of the pandemic, according to a new study in...

Study: In silico analysis predicts a limited impact of SARS-CoV-2 variants on CD8 T cell recognition. Image Credit: artofvisionn/Shutterstock

Novel SARS-CoV-2 strains found to have low impact on CD8 T lymphocytes

by Medical Finance
July 5, 2022
0

In a recent study posted to the bioRxiv* pre-print server, researchers investigated the impact of mutations in the severe acute...

Study: A CNN model for predicting binding affinity changes between SARS-CoV-2 spike RBD variants and ACE2 homologues. Image Credit: Zerbor/Shutterstock

Model for investigating the effect of mutations on the binding affinity of the SARS-CoV-2 RBD-ACE2 complex

by Medical Finance
July 5, 2022
0

In a recent study posted to the bioRxiv* preprint server, researchers used a convolutional neural network (CNN) regression model (CNN_seq)...

Next Post
PhoreMost and POLARISqb announce a multi-target collaboration to investigate next-generation cancer therapies

NeoCura and PhoreMost Announce Research Collaboration to Explore Novel Cancer Therapeutics

Study: Effectiveness of mRNA-1273 against SARS-CoV-2 omicron and delta variants. Image Credit: Studio Romantic/Shutterstock

Evaluating effectiveness of the COVID-19 mRNA-1273 vaccine against Omicron and Delta variants

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Login
Notify of
guest
guest
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Support

  • Contact
  • Disclaimer
  • Home
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms And Conditions

Categories

  • Coronavirus
  • Insights From Industry
  • Interviews
  • Mediknowledge
  • News
  • Thought Leaders
  • Whitepapers

More News

  • shutterstock 1817737565
    Study does not find association between hematological parameters and COVID-19-related hospitalization
  • shutterstock 1675683823
    Role of SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence studies in disease surveillance
  • Home
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • Disclaimer
  • Terms And Conditions

© 2022 Medical Finance - Latest Financial and Business News

No Result
View All Result
  • Interviews
  • Mediknowledge
  • News
  • Insights From Industry
  • Coronavirus
  • Thought Leaders
  • Whitepapers
wpDiscuz
0
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x
| Reply