Do you smoke? You are more at risk than Covid19!!!!
According to an online press conference held by the Hellenic Lung Association in collaboration with the Hellenic Heart Association, on World No Tobacco Day… the problem with the “tobacco epidemic” is huge and experts are sounding the alarm that the full implementation of the fight against it is lagging behind globally.
Smoking worldwide causes more than 5.000.000 deaths and according to experts the In 2025 this number will reach 10 million. Combined with the pandemic that is sweeping the world… smoking does have a higher mortality rate, but also an increased risk of coronavirus infection.
During the press conference, Ms. Zafiria Barbaressou, Pulmonologist, Coordinator of the Smoking Cessation Team & Health Promotion of the HPE, stated that
“At the centre of scientific interest is the debate about whether smoking is associated with an increased likelihood of contracting Sars-Cov-2 or with the severity of the disease. According to scientific data from peer-reviewed studies, to date there is no strong evidence that smokers are protected from infection with the virus. On the contrary, there is growing evidence linking smokers with more severe disease and worse prognosis, and he explained the mechanisms of association. In addition, smokers have an increased risk of infection because they remove their mask and because they often touch their face and mouth with their fingers after having touched other potentially contaminated objects (lighters, matches). To sum up, we would say that in the context of the pandemic, where there is a lot of pressure on health systems and on the treatment of diseases that are clearly related to and affected by smoking, quitting smoking is the best thing you can do to take care of your health and the health of the people around you.”
18 studies, 6310 patients, showed that smoking increases the risk of more severe Covid disease19, by 34%. Mr. Konstantinos Tutouzas, Secretary of the H.C.E., Professor of Cardiology at the University of Athens, 1st University Cardiology Clinic, General Hospital “Hippocrates”, commented that “We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies examining the relationship of smoking with disease severity and mortality in adult hospitalized patients with COVID-19 infection. From 18 studies, which included 6,310 patients, smoking was shown to increase the risk of more severe disease by 34%. The association of smoking with increased likelihood of death was not statistically significant. We also found that both age and diabetes mellitus prevalence had negative associations with the risk of more severe disease, i.e. the role of smoking as a risk factor was more important in young patients without diabetes mellitus. In addition, very recently a large prospective study was published and found that smoking was associated with an increased risk of symptoms from COVID-19 infection, as well as a greater burden of symptoms. Patients with SARS-CoV-2 who smoked had a higher symptom burden and were more likely to need hospitalization compared to non-smokers.”
