Smoking is one of those harmful lifestyle habits that can create fatal health complications. Added to this, a new study finds a link between smoking and COVID-10. According to the study paper published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE, people with a medical history of COPD are more likely to develop COVID-19 and are at the higher risk of dying from the nobel coronavirus.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD is a kind of lung disease that smokers can develop over time. This progressive disease is characterised by long-term breathing problems among smokers due to the “exposure to noxious gases and particulates over a long period,” and there are millions of COPD cases that surface every year. Smoking is one of the prime causes of this lung disease.
The study included examining COVID-19 patients, both smokers, and non-smokers to analyse their complications. The result showed that COVID-10 patients with a medical history of COPD had a 63 percent risk of fatality from COVID-19 whereas patients without COPD developed severe illness only 33 percent of the total time.
As this study stresses more on the risk of developing complications from smoking, earlier studies have also confirmed that smokers are at the higher risk of getting infected with COVID-19.
“Tabacco smoking is a known risk factor for many respiratory infections and increases the severity of respiratory diseases,” said The World Health Organisation in a recent statement.
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