Epidemiology of Acute Kidney Injury in COVID19 Disease in United Kingdom

AKI, COVID

Severe Acute respiratory syndrome coronovirus (SARS-CoV-2) was first described in Wuhan in December 2019. It quickly spread to rest of the world and was declared pandemic by World health organisation. Initial case series focused on lung involvement in the form alveolar haemorrhages and respiratory failure. However, subsequently, there have been reports of kidney involvement resulting in severe acute kidney injury. However, the reported incidence from Chinese data has been less than 5% and detailed epidemiology of AKI in COVID-19 disease is lacking.

On 31st December 2019, a cluster of pneumonia cases were detected in Hubei province of China where the cause was unclear. The cause for these cases was subsequently identified as a virus which was referred to as SARS-CoV-2, and the associated disease as COVID-19.This evolved rapidly into a global pandemic with first case reported in UK as early as on 30th January 2020. As of 30th April 2020, there have been 3.05 million laboratory confirmed cases world-wide with 161,145 cases in United Kingdom (UK) in 539,768 cases tested for COVID-19. The epidemiology of COVID-19 has differed in China, US and Italy which have different demographic characteristics, testing methods and different ways to curb the spread of infection which can be altered by many things, including behaviour, and the stringent social distancing measure.Though the pandemic started in China, as of 30th April 2020, it has reported only 58.32 cases per million people (pmp) as compared to United kingdom which has reported 2433.8 cases pmp. This has resulted in different epidemiology of COVID-19 and organ system involvement. Lung involvement in the form of alveolar haemorrhages and respiratory failure has been well document in patients with COVID-19 and has been focus of attention, however, other organs are also affected in COVID-19, but there has been limited information kidney involvement in COVID patients.

United Kingdom