BackHigher mortality seen in patients on dialysis during covid second wave: study
Mortality among kidney patients on dialysis infected with covid-19 increased from 23% in the first wave to 33% during the second wave, showed a study published in Kidney International Reports, a nephrology journal.
PremiumNEW DELHI: Mortality among kidney patients on dialysis infected with covid-19 increased from 23% in the first wave to 33% during the second wave, showed a study published in Kidney International Reports, a nephrology journal.
Researchers studied 14,573 dialysis patients in the first wave. Out of the number infected with covid-19, 99% were hospitalised for an average of 12 days and mortality rate stood at 23%. The study further sampled 17,662 patients in the second wave. 1,111 or 6.2% of the screened patients were infected with covid-19 and a staggering mortality of 32.76% was observed amongst these patients.
“This is far greater than mortality recorded in 2019 within the same period. Age is another important variable that comes to bear in the study. The mean age of covid-19 -infected people was 53.63, with 45% of all infected persons above the age of 55," the study said.
Beside this alarming figure, the ripple effect on dialysis patients not infected with covid-19 is also massive, according to the report. “Government take-over and conversion of dialysis centres to covid centres also greatly affected treatment and discouraged patients from attending dialysis sessions. This resulted in an increase in mortality among the dialysis population within the period from 15% in 2019 to 20% in 2020," the report said.
Researchers also studied vaccination and the rate of infections, hospitalisations, and mortality among vaccinated patients across India, with findings showing that vaccines are truly effective against covid-19. NephroPlus, an Indian dialysis network undertook this broad study aiming to understand the complexities and understand the impact of covid-19 on dialysis patients and the benefits of vaccination.
The study showed that infections, hospitalizations, and mortality were all significantly reduced among people who had taken at least one dose of the vaccine. “We found that those patients on dialysis who had taken even one dose of the vaccine had as much as 33% reduced risk of getting covid-19 infection compared to those who were not vaccinated. More notable was the halving of the risk of death, even if they got covid-19," Dr Vivekanand Jha, principal investigator of the study said.
“We found that covid-19 infection among patients on dialysis was 20-fold greater than that reported in the general population, when adjusted for age and sex. While it was 8.7% among dialysis patients during the study period, the infection among the general population stood at 0.44% during the same time period," he said.
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