Managing diabetes during the COVID-19 pandemic

The outbreak of a new viral infection in Wuhan, a city in Habei Province, China, became evident in December 2019. The origin of the infection appeared to be a seafood market and it seems likely that the COVID-19 virus crossed from animals to humans. It was soon clear that serious lung disease and increased mortality were possible consequences of acquiring this infection. The disease proved highly contagious and quickly spread to cause a global pandemic, arriving in the UK in late January 2020 (Seewoodhary and Oozageer, 2020).

The virus responsible for the disease known as COVID-19 was identified as SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), which belongs to the coronavirus group of viruses that commonly cause mild upper respiratory disease. Structurally the coronaviruses are composed of a single-strand of RNA surrounded by a lipid envelope that appears spherical under an electron microscope with a crown or ‘corona’ of spikes on the surface. Coronaviruses were also responsible for the epidemics of SARS-CoV in 2002 in China and MERS-CoV in 2012 in Saudi Arabia (BMJ Best Practice, 2020).