Catching Covid significantly raises the risk of developing deadly kidney disease, research has shown.
The virus was found to increase the chances that patients will develop the incurable condition by around 50 per cent.
Researchers at Penn State College of Medicine in the US, who carried out the study, are now calling for Covid patients to be regularly checked for kidney disease.
The condition, which affects roughly 7.2 million Britons, occurs when the organs, which filter out toxins, stop working properly.
Primarily caused by high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes, chronic kidney disease kills around 45,000 people every year.
And the number of patients in the UK is expected to rise by about 400,000 in the next decade.
Now experts say these figures could rise even further, due to patients developing the disease as a result of the Covid virus – which is thought to have affected two-thirds of the British population.
The Penn State scientists analysed the health records of three million Americans.
They found that those who had caught Covid were 54 per cent more likely to have developed kidney disease in the following year than those who had not.
The researchers theorised that this may be because the virus is able to infect these organs and cause lasting damage.
Professor Nasr Ghahramani, a public health expert based at Penn State, said: 'Individuals with Covid-19 infection may need more frequent and more prolonged monitoring of their kidney function.
This is particularly important for individuals who have predisposing factors for kidney disease, such as diabetes and high blood pressure.'
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