Top Wuhan Coronavirus Doc: High Blood Pressure Is Major Death Risk

Underscoring the danger of high blood pressure (hypertension), a top doctor from Wuhan and his colleagues are warning that the chronic condition places people at a higher risk of death. Bloomberg reports:

Patients with hypertension appear to be at a higher risk of dying from the coronavirus, said a top Chinese intensive care doctor who’s been treating critically ill patients since mid-January.

While there’s been no published research yet explaining why, Chinese doctors working in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the virus first emerged, have noticed that infected patients with that underlying illness are more likely to slip into severe distress and die.

Of a group of 170 patients who died in January in Wuhan — the first wave of casualties caused by a pathogen that’s now raced around the world — nearly half had hypertension.

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