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. 2021 Sep 16;57(9):973.
doi: 10.3390/medicina57090973.

Increased Incidence of Type 1 Diabetes during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Romanian Children

Adrian Vlad  1   2 , Viorel Serban  3 , Romulus Timar  1   2 , Alexandra Sima  1   4 , Veronica Botea  5 , Oana Albai  1 , Bogdan Timar  1   2 , Mihaela Vlad  2   6
Affiliations

Increased Incidence of Type 1 Diabetes during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Romanian Children

Adrian Vlad et al. Medicina (Kaunas). .

Abstract

Background and Objective: It is known that several viruses are involved in the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a new worldwide spread virus that may act as a trigger for the autoimmune destruction of the β-cells, as well, and thus lead to an increase in the incidence of type 1 diabetes. Material and Methods: The Romanian National Organization for the Protection of Children and Adolescents with Diabetes (ONROCAD) has collected information regarding new cases of type 1 diabetes in children aged 0 to 14 years from all over the country since 1996 and has computed the incidence of type 1 diabetes in this age group. Results: We observed a marked increase in the incidence of type 1 diabetes in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, with 16.9%, from 11.4/100,000 in 2019 to 13.3/100,000 in 2020, much higher compared to previous years (mean yearly increase was 5.1% in the period 1996-2015 and 0.8% in the interval 2015-2019). The proportion of newly diagnosed cases was significantly higher in the second half of 2020 compared to the second half of the previous years (57.8 vs. 51%, p < 0.0001). Conclusions: All these aspects suggest the role that SARS-CoV-2 could have in triggering pancreatic autoimmunity. To confirm this, however, collecting information from larger populations from different geographical regions, monitoring the incidence curves over a period of several years, and gathering background information on COVID-19 and/or data on COVID-19 specific antibodies are needed.

Keywords: COVID-19; incidence; type 1 diabetes.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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