Researchers have now found that people with rare autoimmune rheumatic diseases are at a greater risk of dying at a younger age amid the Coronavirus pandemic.
The study is issued in the journal named Rheumatology.
The study research team looked at the electronic health records of 170,000 people in England with rare autoimmune rheumatic diseases.
The team found that 1,815 (1.1 per cent) of people with these diseases died during March and April 2020, which was the starting first two months of Coronavirus outbreak.
"People with rare diseases often have poorer health outcomes generally, so we wanted to find out what impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had," said study co-author Fiona Pearce from the University of Nottingham in the UK.
Pearce said, "From our study, we know that during the early months of the pandemic, people with these diseases were more likely to die than the general population.”
The results from the study reveal that for people with these disorders, the risk of dying during Covid-19 has increased from age 35.
According to the researchers, women with rare autoimmune rheumatic diseases had a similar risk of death to men during Covid-19 - whereas usually, their risk of death is lower.
People who fall under the working-age group with rare autoimmune rheumatic diseases are at the dangers of dying during Covid-19 was similar to that of someone 20 years older in the general population.
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Peter Lanyon, Consultant Rheumatologist at Nottingham University Hospitals said, "Our study illustrates the unique ability of collaboration with the National Disease Registration Service to generate findings that can improve health in rare diseases.”
"The next steps in our research are to look at death certificate data and find out why people have died. We'll be examining whether it's due to Covid-19 infection or how much is due to the disruption to healthcare services," added Pearce.
Source: IANS