Epidemiological and clinical features of 291 cases with coronavirus disease 2019 in areas adjacent to Hubei, China: a double-center observational study

Xu Chen; Fang Zheng; Yanhua Qing; Shuizi Ding; Danhui Yang; Cheng Lei; Zhilan Yin; Xianglin Zhou; Dixuan Jiang; Qi Zuo; Jun He; Jianlei Lv; Ping Chen; Yan Chen; Hong Peng; Honghui Li; Yuanlin Xie; Jiyang Liu; Zhiguo Zhou; Hong Luo

The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.03.20030353 doi: medRxiv preprint length of stay in hospital ranged from 5 to 25 days in discharged patients. 2 of 291 (0.7%) patients died during hospitalization. One death case was a 64 years old man in moderate group without any underlying disease. He had a fever for 3 days before admission and was treated by antiviral therapy including lopinavir and ritonavir tablets. The other death case was a 58 years old man in severe/critical group also without any underlying disease, but had symptoms of fever, cough, dyspnea and fatigue for 7 days before admission. Laboratory tests detected a decreased level of WBC (2.26*10 9 /L), lymphocyte Although there has been a lack of evidence-based specific antiviral drugs, almost all patients in this study received antiviral therapy (96.6%), lopinavir and ritonavir tablets (75.9%), recombinant human interferon α2b (45.4%) were the most commonly used treatment. Besides, chloroquine phosphate was reported to have apparent efficacy and acceptable safety against COVID-19 in a multicenter clinical trials 21 and had just been included in the latest edition of the guidelines for China. According to this guideline, two patients in the study were given chloroquine for antiviral therapy. However, the safety and efficacy of antiviral therapies used in COVID-19 patients need further studied.