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Hypertension patients should not discontinue medicine amid Covid-19 outbreak, say experts
Dr Sonu Goel, professor, department of community medicine and school of public health, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) spoke on the need of monitoring other risk factors such as tobacco use
Experts said since hypertensive patients are at highest risk of becoming dangerously sick due to coronavirus, they should keep on taking their medicines and non-adherence to treatment could be dangerous.
Even as the medical fraternity rushes to put in place effective and credible treatment protocols to curb the global pandemic, some studies have suggested that ACE inhibitors and ARBs commonly used to treat blood pressure could aggravate the symptoms of COVID-19 infection.
Clearing the air on the matter, public health experts and medical practitioners from premier institutions across the country stated that it is too early to draw such conclusions and non-adherence to treatment could be dangerous.
Dr Yash Paul Sharma, professor and head, department of cardiology, PGIMER, Chandigarh, said people with hypertension are indeed at a higher risk of catching the coronavirus.
Citing a recent systematic review and meta-analysis that appeared in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases that assessed the prevalence of co-morbidities in Covid-19 infected patients, Sharma said hypertensive patients with the underlying disease were more at risk. He added that Covid-19 patients had fatality rate of 8.4%, 13.2%, 9.2%, 8% and 7.6% in those with hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases and cancer, respectively.
“As such, avoiding blood pressure medications is a risk India cannot afford to take as our healthcare systems are already stretched because of the Covid-19 spread,” he said.
Dr Garg, professor and head, community medicine of Maulana Azad Medical College and Associated Hospitals said, “Hypertensive persons are best advised, in addition to their blood pressure medication, to follow non-pharmacological approaches such as yoga, stress management and low calorie intake to keep their blood pressure levels under check.”
Dr Sonu Goel, professor, department of community medicine and school of public health, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) spoke on the need of monitoring other risk factors such as tobacco use.
Dr Tom Frieden, president and CEO, Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of Vital Strategies, said evidence from around the world showed that people with hypertension should not forego their regular medicines.
