Patients with severe or poorly-controlled asthma are at greater risk of hospitalisation with COVID-19

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Asthma pump. Post Graduate Programmes for Healthcare Professionals Postgraduate Certificate (PG Cert), Postgraduate Diploma (PG Dip), Master’s level (MSc, MPH, MEd), and Master of Research (MRes) target audience was physicians, surgeons, nurses, clinical trials managers, biomedical scientists

The largest study of its kind – a collaboration between the NIHR Imperial BRC, University of Edinburgh and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) – examined the relationship between asthma and COVID-19 and it includes data on almost 80% of adults and more than 75% of 12-17-year-olds in England.

The main findings were that:

  • Children and adults with asthma that is severe or poorly controlled are at greater risk of hospitalisation with COVID-19
  • children and adults with mild or well controlled asthma are not at an increased risk of becoming seriously ill with COVID-19.

The study included data on almost 80% of adults and more than 75% of 12-17-year-olds in England. The researchers used anonymised information from the 2011 census of England combined with general practice data, hospital statistics and registered deaths between January 2020 and September 2021.