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Not all diabetic patients infected with COVID19 face complications: Jitendra Singh

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GUWAHATI: India is the second most diabetes affected country after China, and during this COVID19 period a lot of reports have surfaced where being diabetic was considered dangerous for a COVID19 positive patient.

Union minister and diabetologist, Jitendra Singh in his inaugural address at the Diabetes India World Congress-2021 said that there was need for more public awareness about the correlation between Diabetes and COVID, as there are certain misgivings about the cause and effect relationship between the two. Diabetic patients who are infected with COVID19 may not necessarily face complications, said Singh.  

Delivering the inaugural address as the chief guest at the Diabetes India World Congress-2021, he said even after the COVID pandemic is over, the discipline of social distancing and avoiding droplet infection will act as safeguard against many other infections, particularly for those who have underlying diabetes.

Singh said that diabetic patients are immuno-compromised, and hence more vulnerable to infections like coronavirus as well as consequent complications. This, he said, may lead to vulnerable situations when a patient suffering from diabetes also has kidney involvement or diabetic-nephropathy, chronic kidney disease etc.

However, Jitendra Singh hastened to add that there is no room for panic, because the basic rules of strict glycemic control of blood sugar levels and safeguards against target organ damage, which are otherwise also practised in diabetes, are equally applicable even during the pandemic.

He emphasised, what is important to understand is that while every diabetic need not necessarily get COVID, at the same time every COVID infection may not necessarily lead to complications in case of a diabetic.

Singh said that over the last two decades, India has seen a surge in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, which has now acquired pan-Indian proportions. Type 2 Diabetes, which was till two decades ago prevalent mostly in South India, is today equally rampant in North India and at the same time,it has also moved from metros, cities and urban areas to rural hinterland, the minister said. Source: PTI

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