Johannesburg - Covid-19 has highlighted the need for South Africa to reduce its obesity rate by interventions including nutrition and exercise, immunologists from the University of Pretoria (UP) have said.
Biomedical evidence showed the virus was severe and claimed more lives among obese patients, Priyanka Dhanraj, Reabetswe Pitere and Michael Pepper from UP’s department of immunology wrote in a paper in the prestigious South African Medical Journal.
“The strong association between Covid-19 and obesity-related comorbidities highlights a need for healthcare systems to promote interventions that address non-communicable diseases, including routine health checks, the importance of nutrition and exercise,” the UP trio wrote.
“Covid-19 patients with obesity, and mostly males, present with severe disease. They often require hospitalisation and mechanical ventilation, are admitted to the intensive care unit and have a higher probability of mortality.”
Obesity is associated with various comorbidities that are already known to contribute to the severity of Covid19.
“Obese people are disproportionately affected by hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, pulmonary diseases and cancer, which have also been identified as risk factors for severe Covid19,” Dhanraj, Pitere and Pepper said. They wrote that there were also fears obese people would respond poorly to vaccine once it was availed.
“Obese patients generally respond poorly to vaccinations and anti-viral treatments,” they said.
“This is most likely due to poor antibody responses or poor absorption of vaccines due to increased adiposity. With several countries developing Covid-19 vaccines, there is a concern that vaccines may not be effective in obese individuals.”
South Africa has an obesity problem. Data cited in the study indicated that at least 68% of women and 31% of men were either overweight or obese in 2016. About 13.5% of school-going children between the ages 6 and 14 were reported to be overweight or obese.
Obesity in the country is also driven by high levels of poverty. “People from low-income households tend to buy less expensive foods which are gastronomically filling and energy-dense, but rich in starch, fat and sugar,” the study showed.
The outbreak contributed to the obesity problem as people avoided gyms.
The Star