Clinical and hematological characteristics of 300 COVID-19 patients in Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq.

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 primarily presents as a respiratory tract infection, but studies indicate that it could be considered a systemic disease that can spread to affect multiple organ systems, including respiratory, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, hematopoietic, neurological, and immune systems. OBJECTIVE: To describe and analyze the clinical and hematological characteristics of 300 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Erbil, Kurdistan. METHODS: This retrospective study included 300 patients of any age admitted to hospital due to confirmed COVID-19 between September 2020 and February 2021. Cases were diagnosed by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction assays of nasopharyngeal swab specimens. RESULTS: The highest proportion of patients were aged 21-40 years. The most common symptoms among the patients were myalgia (66.7%), fatigue (62.3%), headache (50.7%), and chest pain (52.7%). Differences in hematological and biochemical parameters were observed between deceased and recovered patients. Only the mid-range absolute count percentage (MID%) was significantly higher in the recovered patients than in the deceased ones (6.41% vs. 4.48, p = 0.019). Death was significantly higher among older patients (>40 years) than younger ones (≤40 years) (6.8% vs. 1.3%, p = 0.015), diabetic than non-diabetic (10.8% vs. 3%, p = 0.047), and those having chronic diseases than those without chronic diseases (10.6% vs. 2.1%, p = 0.006). CONCLUSIONS: Different hematological and biochemical parameter findings were observed among the COVID-19 patients. Low MID%, older age, and presence of diabetes mellitus and chronic disease were significantly associated with death among COVID-19 patients.

Analysis of cytokines in SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19 patients in Erbil city, Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

The emergence of the novel coronavirus and then pandemic outbreak was coined 2019- nCoV or COVID-19 (or SARS-CoV-2 disease 2019). This disease has a mortality rate of about 3·7 percent, and successful therapy is desperately needed to combat it. The exact cellular mechanisms of COVID-19 need to be illustrated in detail. This study aimed to evaluate serum cytokines in COVID-19 patients. In this study, serum was collected from volunteer individuals, moderate COVID-19 patients, severe cases of COVID-19 patients, and patients who recovered from COVID-19 (n = 122). The serum concentrations of interleukins such as IL-1, IL-4, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA). The concentrations of IL-1 and TNF-α were did not differ significantly among groups. However, the concentration of IL-6 was significantly higher in moderate COVID-19 and severe cases of COVID-19 groups compared to control and recovered groups indicating it to be an independent predictor in the coronavirus disease. The levels of IFN-γ and IL-4 were significantly lower in the recovery group than the severe case of the COVID-19 group. In contrast, the level of IL-10 in recovered COVID-19 patients was significantly higher in compare to severe cases, COVID-19 patients. Varying levels of cytokines were detected in COVID-19 group than control group suggesting distinct immunoregulatory mechanisms involved in COVID-19 pathogenesis. However, additional investigations are needed to be to be performed to understand the exact cellular mechanism of this disease.