COVID-19 detection in limited hospital facilities: The role of monocytes

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION COVID-19 is an emerging infectious disease with etiology severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus-2 (SARS-COV-2) which is causing various clinical manifestations not only in the respiratory tract. COVID-19 declared as a pandemic that causes high mortality worldwide. Simple examination modalities are needed to help diagnose COVID-19. This descriptive case report has aims to show the role of monocyte count to help establish the diagnosis of COVID-19. METHODOLOGY This is a case report from confirmed COVID-19 cases in RS Bhayangkara Brimob. Data will be presented according to the descriptive method. RESULTS52 confirmed cases from April 2020 until May 2020 were used in this research, consist of 42 (81.13%) male patients and 10 (16.87%) female patients. 34 (65,38%) patients had an increase in monocyte count. Of 45 symptomatic patients, 29 of them (64.44%) were known to have monocytes> 7. Of 17 confirmed positive patients who shown unilateral and bilateral infiltrate, 13 of them had an increase in monocyte count, 1 patient(100%), and 12 (26,67%) patients, respectively. CONCLUSIONS From the data, we conclude that simple laboratory result parameters such as lymphocyte, sedimentation rate, particularly monocyte, help to establish the diagnosis of COVID-19. This is based on increasing monocyte in mostly all confirmed COVID-19 patients involved in this study.