Paris (AFP)

Nearly 350 million people worldwide are at risk of being severely affected by Covid-19 disease and would require hospitalization if infected, said a British study released Tuesday.

We know that the new coronavirus affects humans very unevenly based on multiple factors, related to health status, age, sex and others.

SARS-CoV-2 thus leaves young healthy people largely unharmed and, on the contrary, often affects the elderly often with chronic diseases such as diabetes.

Based on what is known about risk factors, British researchers sought to establish for 188 countries the differentiated risks for populations by age, sex and state of health.

Results, published in the British medical journal The Lancet Global Health, show that 1.7 billion humans, or 22% of the world's population, have at least one risk factor that makes them more likely to have severe form from Covid-19.

Among these, 349 million people are particularly at risk of developing a severe form of the disease and would need to be hospitalized in the event of contamination.

"As countries emerge from containment (...) we hope our estimates will provide a useful starting point" for governments who "are looking for ways to protect the most vulnerable from a virus that continues to circulate", comments the lead author of the study, Andrew Clark, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

The researcher cites advising those most at risk of adopting adapted social distancing gestures or making them a priority for future vaccination campaigns.

The proportion of residents at risk is lower in regions where the population is younger. This is the case of Africa, where 16% of the population presents a risk factor for the new coronavirus, or 283 million out of a total population of 1.3 billion. In Europe, this share is 31%, or 231 million out of a population of 747 million.

"But a higher proportion of severe cases could be fatal in Africa" ​​due in particular to the weakness of health infrastructure, underlines Andrew Clark.

In addition, African countries with the highest proportions of AIDS cases such as Lesotho are more at risk vis-à-vis the pandemic.

At the same time, islands like Mauritius and Fiji present increased risks due to a high proportion of the population suffering from diabetes, one of the aggravating factors for this viral disease, according to the study.

© 2020 AFP