It should not be treated as a trigger to smoke. But it can still be a relief to the smokers.
French scientists have suggested the possibility that nicotine, a component of tobacco, could prevent coronavirus infection, after they found that low number of smokers had infected the deadly disease.
This is contradictory to the previous warnings by the World Health Organisation and also a study by Chinese researchers who said smokers contract more sever cases. A team of French scientists from the Institut Pasteur made a study in this regard and it was published in the science portal Qeios.
The team examined 343 coronavirus patients, along with 139 infected with the coronavirus infection with milder symptoms. The results of the study show that a low number of the patients infected are smoking, compared to the smoking rates of about 35 percent in France’s general population.
In comparison to the number of smokers in the general population, about 40 percent for people from 44 to 53 years old, and 9 to 11 percent for those between 65 and 75 years old, the team discovered that fewer smokers seem to have been infected, or at least experienced severe symptoms.
Among the patients, only 5 percent were smokers, which means that there were approximately 80 percent fewer smokers among the COVID-19 patients that in the general population if the same age and gender cohort.
“Our cross-sectional study strongly suggests that those who smoke every day are much less likely to develop a symptomatic or severe infection with SARS-CoV-2 compared with the general population,” the authors of the study said.
