ABSTRACT
Backgroung: Brazil was slow to implement an expanded testing policy for COVID-19, which may have affected the most vulnerable population's access to testing services. Objective: to evaluate the factors associated with performing the molecular test for COVID-19. Methods: cross-sectional study of secondary data from the COVID-19 panel in the state of Espírito Santo. COVID-19 suspicion notification forms were included between September 11, 2020 and March 2, 2021. Hierarchical logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI95%). Results: 419,771 notification forms were analyzed. The prevalence of performing the molecular teste for COVID-19 was 81.1% (CI95% 81.0-81.2). Elderly (OR= 2.70 – CI95% 2.56-2.85), health professional (OR=1.43 – CI95% 1.36-1.50), chronic cardiovascular disease (OR=1.13 – CI95% 1.09-1.17), diabetes mellitus (OR=1.07 – CI95% 1.01-1.14) and hospitalization (OR=5.95 – CI95% 4.53;7.82) were more likely to have undergone the molecular test. Male sex (OR=0.96 – CI95% 0.94-0.98), black skin color (OR=0.75 – CI95% 0.73-0.78), yellow skin color (OR=0.74 – CI95% 0.71-0.77), residing in the northern health region (OR=0.37 – CI95% 0.36-0.39) and the homeless population (OR=0.76 – CI95% 0.67-0.85) had the lowest chance of having undergone the molecular test. Conclusion: Social, economic, contextual factors and the risk of aggravation of the disease were associated with carrying out the molecular test for COVID-19 in the state of Espírito Santo. Actions are needed to guarantee the access of the most vulnerable population to molecular testing. © The authors (2023), this article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4. 0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1. 0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
ABSTRACT
Objectives: to characterize school-aged children, adolescents, and young people’s profile and their associations with positive COVID-19 test results. Methods: an observational and descriptive study of secondary data from the COVID-19 Panel in Espírito Santo State in February to August 2020. People suspected of COVID-19, in the 0–19-years old age group, were included in order to assess clinical data and demographic and epidemiological factors associated with the disease. Results: in the study period, 27,351 COVID-19 notification were registered in children, adolescents, and young people. The highest COVID-19 test confirmation was found in Caucasians and were 5-14 years age group. It was also observed that headache was the symptom with the highest test confirmation. Infection in people with disabilities was more frequent in the confirmed cases. The confirmation of cases occurred in approximately 80% of the notified registrations and 0.3% of the confirmed cases, died. Conclusion: children with confirmed diagnosis for COVID-19 have lower mortality rates, even though many were asymptomatic. To control the chain of transmission and reduce morbidity and mortality rates, it was necessaryto conduct more comprehensive research and promote extensive testing in the population.