Sex-specific epidemiological and clinical characteristics of Covid-19 patients in the southeast region of Bangladesh

Background

COVID-19 has become a global pandemic with a high growth rate of confirmed cases. In Bangladesh, both mortality and affected rates are increasing at an alarming rate.

Therefore, more comprehensive studies of the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of COVID-19 are required to control this pandemic.

Purpose

The present study aimed to compare and analyze the sex-specific epidemiological, clinical characteristics, comorbidities, and other information of confirmed COVID-19 patients from the southeast region in Bangladesh for the first time.

Methods

385 lab-confirmed cases were studied out of 2,471 tested samples between 5 June and 10 September 2020. RT-PCR was used for COVID-19 identification and SPSS (version 25) for statistical data analysis.

Results

We found that male patients were roughly affected compared to females patients (male 74.30% vs. female 25.7%) with an average age of 34.86 ± 15.442 years, and B (+ve) blood group has been identified as a high-risk factor for COVID-19 infection. Workplace, local market, and bank were signified as sex-specific risk zone ( p < 0.001). Pre-existing medical conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases were identified among the patients. Less than half of the confirmed COVID-19 cases in the southeast region were asymptomatic (37.73%) and more prevalent among females than males (male vs. female: 36.84% vs. 40.51%, p = 0.001).

Conclusions

The findings may help health authorities and the government take necessary steps for identification and isolation, treatment, prevention, and control of this global pandemic.