Clinical and epidemiological profile of patients infected by COVID-19 at a tertiary care centre in North India

Abstract

A worldwide outbreak of a respiratory illness, first detected in December 2019 in Wuhan city, Hubei province, China is ongoing. The disease is caused by a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 and on February 11, 2020, was officially named Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) by the World Health Organization. Within few weeks, it has spread globally to the extent that World Health Organization declared it as a global pandemic on March 11, 2020. India’s first positive case was reported on January 30th in Kerala. Before March 3rd, India had 3 cases of coronavirus in Kerala all of which were treated and discharged. On March 3rd, India’s 4th case was diagnosed in the state of Rajasthan. Indian government had announced a number of preventive measures to minimize the entry and spread of coronavirus. On March 3rd, India announced the suspension of all visas issued to Italy, Iran, South Korea and Japan. India banned international flights from March 22nd. A 21-day lockdown across the country was imposed from March 26th, which later got further extended. Rigorous contact tracing and tracking of COVID patients and monitoring home quarantine helped in preventing community transmission. The aim of this work is to describe the experience with clinical and epidemiologic features, as well as with the management of COVID-19 patients in north India. This is a descriptive study of the 17 COVID-19 infected patients confirmed with polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and admitted to a tertiary care centre in India from March 11th 2020 to April 16th 2020. The present work also provides insight in to treatment provided and final outcome of the patients infected with COVID-19 in India. Laboratory investigations in COVID-19 patients in the Indian subcontinent reveal lymphopenia as predominant finding in hemogram. Patients with older age and associated comorbidities (COPD, hypertension and diabetes) seem to have greater risk for lung injury, thereby requiring oxygen support during the course of disease.

Clinical and Epidemiological Characteristics of Elderly Patients with Coronavirus Disease-19 at a Tertiary Care Center in South India

“…In this study, COVID-19 infection was nearly 1.5 times more common in males than females. This finding is similar to previous reports in aged patients from India 24,25 . Previous studies proposed that susceptibility to viral infections may be linked to gender 26 .…”

“…The major disease symptoms found in our study were fever, dry cough, breathlessness, and fatigue/myalgia. The findings of our study are similar to the many other studies done in COVID-19 infections in elderly people 24,25 . Krishnasamy et al from India reported that 66.3% of their study subjects with COVID-19 infections were male, and the most common presenting indications were fever (69.9%), cough (29.6%), generalized body pain (10.4%), difficulty in breathing (10.1%) and fatigue (10.1%) 24 .…”

Prevalence of co-morbidities and its association with mortality in Indian patients with COVID-19: A meta-analysis

“…Finally, we included 34 studies which included 23,034 patients totally, of which 14,786 patients were male and 8,208 were females. [ 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 ] One study did not mention distribution of the sample size between male and female. All the 34 studies were based on Indian population and were performed at different hospitals in India.…”