People with sickle cell disease are at increased risk of COVID-19–related hospitalization and mortality, according to a study recently published in the Journal of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology.
Researchers from the Sickle Cell Data Collection Program linked data from sickle cell disease newborn screening results in Georgia and Michigan and state-reported COVID-19 test results to estimate COVID-19 outcomes in people with sickle cell disease (n = 245) or with sickle cell trait (n = 4,165), compared to people with normal red blood cells (n = 325,142).
The researchers found that people with COVID-19 and sickle cell disease in both Georgia and Michigan had significantly higher rates of COVID-19 hospitalization than individuals with normal red blood cells. Among people with sickle cell disease, 18.4% were hospitalized for COVID-19, compared to 0.7% with normal red blood cells. The odds of COVID-19 hospitalization were 20 times higher for people with sickle cell disease in Georgia and 15 times higher for people with sickle cell disease in Michigan, compared to Black individuals in both states with normal red blood cells.
In Michigan, people with sickle cell disease also had higher rates of mortality. For Black individuals, the odds of COVID-19-related death were 11 times higher for people with sickle cell disease versus those with normal red blood cells. COVID-19 outcomes among people with sickle trait were not significantly worse than those with normal red blood cells.
“COVID-19 should be considered a high-risk infection for people with sickle cell disease,” says coauthor Angie Snyder, Ph.D., lead of the Sickle Cell Data Collection Program in Georgia and director of health policy and financing at the Georgia Health Policy Center. “These results are even more striking when you consider the younger age of the individuals included in this study. These results are likely underestimating the COVID-19 mortality, which means people with sickle cell disease should be encouraged to be vaccinated for the virus and take precautions against exposure.”
Read the full study here.