MOSCOW, October 23. /TASS/. Coronavirus infection is encountered over ten times more often in diabetes patients. This disease prevails among patients with a serious form of the infection, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova stated on Friday.

"In general, among patients with diabetes the coronavirus infection is encountered 10.3 times more often. The diabetes patients are observed to have a more serious course of the disease, a more common development of an acute respiratory distress syndrome, of respiratory insufficiency, the need in artificial lung ventilation, and, unfortunately, higher mortality. As a concomitant disease, diabetes is encountered in 27% of the confirmed coronavirus cases and most often prevails in the group of patients with serious cases, complicated by hyperglycemia in 90% of cases," she said at a Council on Guardianship in the Social Sphere under the Government of the Russian Federation.

She noted that the diabetes patients have a higher risk of developing pneumonia.

"That is why during the period of the spread of the coronavirus infection it is especially important for the diabetes patients to observe the general rules of prevention. And with the first cold symptoms a more frequent monitoring of blood glucose levels is necessary as well as a timely correction of sugar-reducing therapy with the use of insulin," the deputy prime minister added.

She reiterated that to date, almost 1.5 mln coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia. Over the past 24 hours, according to the anti-coronavirus crisis center, 17,340 new cases of the infection were detected.