GARDEN ROUTE NEWS - People who currently have tuberculosis or HIV have more than double (2,5 times) the risk of dying due to Covid-19, while for people with previous TB, the increased risk of death is about 1,4 times.

This is according to an analysis that looked at factors associated with Covid-19 death in all adult public sector patients of 20 years and older in the public health system.

This amounts to over 3,5 million people who visited the public health facilities over the past three years and included data of 12 987 Covid-19 cases, of which 435 have died. The information was shared last week by Prof Mary-Ann Davies of the Western Cape Department of Health in an online media briefing.

Davies said the figure for HIV translates to about 12% of all Covid deaths and about half of that for TB.

The risk where other comorbidities are present is much higher, with diabetes being the biggest contributor. Just over half of Covid deaths can be attributed to diabetes and just under 20% to high blood pressure.

"This is the first data that gives us an idea of what the risks for HIV and TB might be. These risks are clearly much smaller than for several of the other comorbidities and for the effect of age, and we might be over-estimating the effect (of HIV

and TB) because we haven't taken into account any other comorbidities such as being overweight, and it also doesn't include taking into account socio-economic status."

She said they didn't see any difference for people who were virally suppressed. "We were quite surprised about this.

The risk factor for Covid death among TB and HIV sufferers is lower than was expected, according to an analysis done by the Western Cape Health Department.

When we looked just at the people with HIV, the risk was the same irrespective of viral suppression.

We might have expected the people who are not on treatment with very poor immune function to be worse, and that's not what we are seeing.

"This suggests that there is something more complicated going on and it's obviously an area that we need to explore further."

Davies said the results are very similar to international studies that indicate that older age and some of the common comorbidities do increase the risk of Covid death, with diabetes being the biggest contributor. She stressed that it is not formal research, but they are sharing the information in the interest of transparency about the data the department has, so that people can start to understand the risks for poor Covid outcomes.

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