Coronavirus illustration in Lille.

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M.Libert / 20 Minutes

  • A study carried out in two regions of France shows a new dramatic consequence of the coronavirus epidemic.

  • Many people who have had a heart attack have not been hospitalized.

    The number of treatments has actually fallen by 20%.

  • This could result in a significant number of deaths due to this non-coverage.

Future collateral victims.

A study in Lille already showed, in mid-December, that the official assessment of the victims of Covid-19 did not take into account patients who had died of cardiac arrest at home.

This undervaluation of over 12% could ultimately be even worse.

A new study, published in the prestigious medical journal

The Lancet Regional Health

, suggests a 30% increase in the toll of the epidemic linked to cardiovascular health.

The study in question was carried out in Hauts-de-France and Pays-de-la-Loire.

The data collected in all the hospitals taking care of infarctions made it possible to determine the number of myocardial infarctions that occurred during the first confinement.

"Researchers have thus observed a 20% drop in hospital admissions for myocardial infarction, inducing excess mortality linked to the disease in 2020", summarizes the Lille University Hospital in a press release.

A drop in hospitalizations which will "weigh heavily"

The consequence is in the image of what was observed by the Oscar Lambret center, in Lille, on the subject of delays in the diagnosis of cancers: "This drop in the number of hospitalizations for heart attacks will indirectly weigh heavily on the total death toll. to be linked to the epidemic, ”warns the Lille University Hospital.

In the two regions studied over a period of seven weeks, "the researchers evoke a figure close to 600 patients who presented a heart attack without being hospitalized", specifies the study.

Over the same period, 1,800 patients died from COVID-19, a difference of about 30%.

The researchers believe that this spectacular drop in hospitalizations after a heart attack is mainly due "to a self-limitation of access to patient care which has been worsened by confinement".

They therefore urge the population to recall "the importance of continuity of care, especially in the field of heart disease, even during the Covid period".

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  • Heart attack

  • epidemic

  • Coronavirus

  • Health