Determination of the link between hypertension and Covid-19

高血压（不受控制的高血压）是世界范围内可预防的过早死亡的主要原因。在全球范围内，估计有13.9亿人患有高血压，2015年高血压导致约1070万人死亡。预计到2025年，全球将有超过15亿人受到影响。在英国，30%的成年人患有高血压，950万人被诊断患有高血压，仅在英国就有500万人可能患有高血压，但却不知道。在当前的COVID-19大流行中，高血压患者在控制病情方面面临着额外的挑战：\*在社会上被孤立，无法与他们的全科医生/医疗保健专业人员（HCP）见面，\*阅读媒体和科学文献中的报道，这些报道表明，感染COVID-19的高血压患者中有很大一部分患有严重疾病，被送进重症监护室，接受机械通气或死亡。通过使用手机应用程序来远程监测高血压患者，该应用程序可以记录每日血压读数、当前治疗方案并显示任何COVID-19症状，这将满足当前的临床需求，并使医疗管理和患者参与，而无需患者与hcp直接接触。我们的目标是更新一款已开发的手机应用程序，该应用程序专为高血压临床研究而设计，以包含更多功能，以便在COVID-19环境下的新临床试验中部署。该试验旨在展示一种“一切照旧”的方法来管理和监测长期病情，并收集有助于回答高血压社区关注的问题的数据，即：降压药的使用和/或血压控制水平是否会影响COVID-19感染的风险？降压药的使用和/或血压控制水平是否影响COVID-19疾病/肺炎的严重程度？\*特定类型的降压药会影响COVID-19感染的风险吗？

Hypertension (uncontrolled high blood pressure) is the leading preventable cause of premature death worldwide. Globally, 1.39bn people are estimated to have hypertension, and it caused ~10.7 million deaths in 2015\. It is projected to affect more than 1.5 billion people around the world by 2025\.In the UK ~30% of adults have hypertension, 9.5m have a diagnosis, and a further 5m people in England alone may have hypertension yet be unaware.In the current pandemic of COVID-19, people with hypertension are facing additional challenges in managing their condition as they are:\*socially isolating and not being able to meet with their GP/Healthcare Professional (HCP) with the same frequency\*reading stories in the press and scientific literature that indicate that a high percentage of patients with hypertension who contract COVID-19 have severe illness, are admitted to an intensive care unit, receive mechanical ventilation, or die.Being able to remotely monitor people with hypertension through use of a phone app that records daily BP readings, current treatment regimens and indicate any COVID-19 symptoms will address a current clinical need and enable medical management and patient engagement without the need for direct patient-HCP contact.We aim to update an already developed phone app designed for a hypertension focussed clinical study to include additional features for deployment in a new clinical trial in a COVID-19 setting. The trial will aim to demonstrate a "business as usual" approach to managing and monitoring a long term condition as well as collecting data help to answer questions that are of concern for the hypertension community namely:\*Does blood pressure drug use and/or level of blood pressure control affect risk of COVID-19 infection?\*Does blood pressure drug use and/or level of blood pressure control affect severity of COVID-19 illness/pneumonia?\*Do particular types of blood pressure medication affect risk of COVID-19 infection?