Correlation of clinical characteristics between patients with seasonal influenza and patients infected by the wild type or delta variant of SARS-CoV-2

Abstract

BackgroundWe compared the clinical characteristics of the patients with COVID-19, infected by the wild type or delta variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), in connection with those of patients with seasonal influenza, all in mild cases.MethodsWe retrospectively studied 245 and 115 patients with mild COVID-19 infected by the wild type and the delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, respectively, with their demographic information, medical history, and laboratory data from hospital records, individually compared to 377 patients with mild seasonal influenza, before and after individual treatment.ResultsCompared to the influenza cohort, the COVID-19 cohort or the COVID-19 delta variant cohort demonstrated younger median age, lower male ratio, and shorter duration from disease onset to hospitalization. Hypertension remained the top comorbidity among all cohorts. Based on patients' data upon hospitalization, the correlation of clinical characteristics between patients with influenza and those with the wild-type COVID-19 is greater than that between patients with influenza and those with the delta variant COVID-19. Individual treatment in each viral disease alleviated most hematological parameters, but some compromised biomarkers at the time of hospital discharge revealed persistent renal or myocardial impairment among patients with COVID-19 and influenza in recovery.ConclusionTimely and proper treatment using broad-spectrum antibiotics and antiviral drugs could moderately alleviate the acute viremia and possible bacterial co-infection in patients with mild COVID-19 and influenza, followed by compromised recovery. To prepare for the flu season amid the COVID-19 pandemic, preventive and adequate immunizations of both flu and COVID-19 vaccines, as well as specific therapeutics to effectively reverse viral impairments, are in urgent need.

Associations between genetic mutations in different SARS-CoV-2 strains and negative conversion time of viral RNA among imported cases in Hangzhou: A cross-sectional study

“…Regarding SARS-CoV-2-specific indicators, our results and previous results showed that there was no significant difference in Ct values between Delta and Omicron variants ( Hu et al, 2022 ). Our results and previous results showed that the absolute WBC count was significantly lower in the Delta group than the WT group ( Hu et al, 2022 ; Zhang et al, 2022 ). Moreover, the absolute T lymphocyte, WBC, RBC, eosinophil, and basophil counts were significantly lower in the Delta group than the WT and/or Omicron groups.…”

“…This may be due to clinical differences between imported and indigenous cases. Besides, the number of Omicron cases ( n = 20) in the study by Zhang et al (2022c) was relatively small.…”

Biochemical Role of Blood Electrolytes in Old Iraqi Patients with COVID-19

“…At this point , hypertension is the most common complication of COVID-19 patients which subsequently lead to a distrupt in potassium balance and increase in sera K levels (14). Similarly, it has been reported that K levels was significantly higher in the severe COVID-19 patients compared with the non severe cases and the outcomes revealed a positive relationship between the COVID-19 infection and higher levels of potassium in the blood stream (15). The prevalence of hyperkalemia in COVID-19 patients may be reflected firstly by pre-existing clinical conditions that are regarded as risk factors for the development of severe COVID-19 cases , (14) and secondly by the acute kidney injury as a complication of COVID-19 infection because it has been reported that serum urea was increased in severe COVID-19 patients.…”

Risk factors for hospitalization and pneumonia development of pediatric patients with seasonal influenza during February–April 2023

“…In parallel, the positive rate of influenza virus remained constantly low until early February 2023, but began to climb and reached the highest in late March before it gradually declined (8). This flu eruption was predicted due to the loosening of COVID-19 restrictions, as well as the loss of natural immunity developed for the circulating influenza virus in the past seasons prior to the year of 2023 (9).…”