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

Islam, M. A.; Marzan, A. A.; Islam, M. S.; Sultana, S.; Parvej, M. I.; Hossain, M. S. H.; Amin, M. T.; Hossain, F. E.; Barek, M. A.; Hossen, F.; Bahadur, N. M.; Hossen, M. S.; Hossain, M. S.; Alam, M. D.-u.; Ahmed, F.

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 a total of 2471 tested samples between June 5 and September 10, 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 to take necessary steps for identification and isolation, treatment, prevention, and control of this global pandemic. Keywords: COVID-19, Coronavirus disease, Epidemiological, Clinical features, Asymptomatic, Comorbidities