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Editorial Volume 8 Issue 5
The COVID-19 syndemic
Attapon Cheepsattayakorn,1,3 
Ruangrong Cheepsattayakorn,2 Porntep Siriwanarangsun3
110th Zonal Tuberculosis and Chest Disease Center, Chiang Mai, Thailand
2Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand
3Faculty of Medicine, Western University, Pathumtani Province, Thailand
Correspondence: Attapon Cheepsattayakorn, 10th Zonal Tuberculosis and Chest Disease Center, 143 Sridornchai Road Changklan Muang Chiang Mai 50100 Thailand, Tel 66 53 140767, 66 53 276364, Fax 66 53 140773, 66 53 273590
Received: November 29, 2020 | Published: December 10, 2020
Citation: Cheepsattayakorn A, Cheepsattayakorn R, Siriwanarangsun P. The COVID-19 Syndemic. J Hum Virol Retrovirolog. 2020;8(5):131. DOI: 10.15406/jhvrv.2020.08.00234
Editorial
A syndemic, or synergistic epidemic refers to the concept that the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) does not act isolation. Moreover, there are comorbid non-communicable diseases (NCDs) that trigger the tissue damage in patients with COVID-19, such as heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. Miller Singer, an American medical anthropologist firstly conceived the observation of a syndemic in 1990s. Singer claimed that biological and social interactions involving in a syndemic approach are critical for health policy, prognosis, and treatment. The societies will never be exactly COVID-19 secure unless governments plan policies and programs to reverse profound disparities. Increasing an individual’s susceptibility to worsen or harm their health outcomes is characterized by biological and social interactions between states and conditions in disease syndemics.
Considering COVID-19 as a syndemic, social origins of COVID-19 is the most important factor. Greater attention to the NCDs and socioeconomic inequality than has the patients been admitted will limit the harm caused by SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). By prior attacking NCDs, patients with COVID-19 will be successfully contained. In 2017, Singer et al demonstrated that understanding and treating diseases can be far more successful than simply controlling epidemic disease or treating individual patients due to a syndemic approach provision of a very different orientation to clinical medicine and public health.
In conclusion, nevertheless, some countries’ political leadership in response to the COVID-19 crisis, such as of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand that consider syndemic being undesirable model for this crisis.
Acknowledgments
None.
Conflicts of interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
©2020 Cheepsattayakorn, et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially.