Descriptive epidemiology of COVID-19 death cases reported at the emergency department Taher Sfar Mahdia

ABSTRACT

Introduction: The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a pandemic responsible for 3 million deaths worldwide according to the World Health Organization (WHO) hence considered as a “ global health emergency”. The aim of the present study was to describe the demographic characteristics, clinical presentation, of COVID-19 death cases in the emergency department Taher Sfar Mahdia. Methods: We did a retrospective study over a period of 1 year, from August 2020 to August 2021, carried out at Taher Sfar Mahdia hospital, in the Emergency Department, on patients over 18 years old with COVID 19 confirmed by either RT-PCR and or SARS-COV-2 rapid antigen test and dead in emergency room. Results: A total of 976 cases were detected over the study period including 308 (29,9%) COVID-19 deaths among them dead in emergency department. The median age of those patients was 76 years [IQR 69-83]. The sex ratio (M / W) was 1.3. 57 (56%) patients had at least one comorbidity mainly arterial hypertension (57%) followed by diabetes (38%). The median time from symptoms onset to patient's admission was 5 days [IQR 4-10], they had a median SpO2 of 81% [IQR 75%-88. While their hospitalization, these patients required high flows of O2, mainly HCM 148 (48%);NIV 49 (15%) and MV 101 (33%). The median length of stay was 4 days [IQR 2-7]. Conclusions: This descriptive retrospective study shows also a high mortality rate in the emergency department. These deaths could be avoided if the intensive care department accepted them, but the advanced age, several comorbidities, a severe clinical form were the reasons why the medical resuscitation department refused to take them in charge preferring to save the few places they have for patients with better prognosis.