Widely used since the start of the health crisis, the term “comorbidities” is synonymous with “associated diseases”.
- “Comorbidity” refers to diseases that often accompany another.
“I can certify that all people who are 50 years old or older with comorbidities can be vaccinated with AstraZeneca without age limit, including 65-74 years old”, said Monday, March 1 on France 2 the Minister of Health Olivier Véran. Since the beginning of the health crisis, and more particularly the launch of the vaccination campaign, the term of “comorbidity” is on all official lips. But what does he mean exactly?
The “comorbidity” refers to diseases that often accompany another. To give an example, diabetes is a disease with strong comorbidity: it is common for other pathologies to be associated with it, such as hypertension. In the Larrousse, comorbidity is defined as “the association of two diseases, psychic or physical, frequently observed in the population (without established causality, unlike complications). Obesity and osteoarthritis of the hip present a comorbidity.”
Covid-19 and comorbidities
With regard to covid-19, the comorbidities identified by HAS as a proven risk of hospitalization or death are as follows:
· obesity (BMI >30), particularly in the youngest;
· COPD and respiratory failure;
· complicated hypertension;
heart failure;
diabetes (type 1 and type 2);
· chronic renal failure;
cancers and malignant haematological diseases that are active and less than 3 years old;
· having a solid organ or haematopoietic stem cell transplant.
According to an analysis carried out by Public Health France and INSERM, 65% of patients who died of the coronavirus from March 1 to November 15, 2020 had at least one comorbidity, the most frequent being heart pathologies (34%), arterial hypertension ( 23%) and diabetes (16%).
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