Covid spawns a spike in heart disease and cancer
Discovery Employee Benefits says it has seen a huge spike in cardiometabolic and cancer claims since the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, with long Covid playing a role.
Claims data released by Discovery Employee Benefits, which insures more than half-amillion individuals through its group risk benefits, show that claims for cardiometabolic conditions more than tripled since 2020, with a 200% increase in claims over the past year.
Cardiometabolic disorders relate to several interrelated risk factors, including hypertension, elevated blood sugar, abdominal obesity and triglycerides.
Discovery employee benefits data also show that there has been a dramatic surge in death claims resulting from cancer compared with prepandemic levels. Cancer deaths increased from just two a month recorded by group risk in 2018, to six a month in 2022.
“Analysis of our annual claims data reveals a visible and concerning increase in the incidence of deaths associated with cardiovascular disease among our client base that is, illnesses that affect the heart and blood vessels — as well as an increase in the incidence of deaths from cancer,” said Guy Chennells, head of product at Discovery employee benefits.
“Our data shows a definite decline in people going for cancer screenings during Covid-19 that corresponds to a drop in treatments for all stages of cancer being recorded by the Discovery Health Medical Scheme. This means that people aren’t detecting their cancers as early as they otherwise would have, because they’re screening less.”
The key drivers, all due to Covid-19, of the spike in claims are long Covid; a marked decline in individuals conducting annual health checks and screenings; and a reduction in regular exercise, Chennells said.
International data suggest that long Covid increases the risk of heart attacks and stroke disease because of the heightened risk of blood-clotting conditions, he said.
“This certainly contributes to the greater number of cardiovascular-related claims we’re seeing in our data. But behaviour change, which began during the pandemic, is also contributing to these illnesses.”
Data show that generalised health checks declined as much as 50% during Covid-19 from screening levels in 2019. In these health checks people become aware of and are encouraged to manage cardiometabolic risk factors such as high cholesterol and blood pressure.
Furthermore, exercise levels dropped 12% during Covid-19.
“Encouragingly, though, the exercise rates seem to be almost back to levels seen prepandemic,” said Chennells.
Discovery employee benefits data show natural deaths continue to track at levels higher than before the pandemic.
In March 2020, as President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the first hard lockdown to contain the coronavirus outbreak, Discovery group risk recorded a three-month rolling average of 87 deaths per month. This figure spiked at 249 deaths per month by August 2021 during the third wave of the outbreak. In the three months to July 2022, it had yet to return to prepandemic levels, with 111 deaths per month recorded on average.
This elevated trend holds true for unnatural and natural deaths, with the former trending above levels seen during and before the pandemic, and the latter having declined markedly since then, though still not returning to prepandemic levels.