An insight into gender specific comparison of COVID-19 patients in Lahore, Pakistan

ABSTRACT

Background: The deadly disease, named SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2), which emerged in 2019, immediately spread across the world and killed millions of people. The aim of the current work was to find gender-based disparities in the people of Lahore, Pakistan in terms of COVID-19 severity. Methods: We examined the individuals (n = 1000) that visited two private diagnostic centers in Lahore, Pakistan, for COVID-19 testing between May 1, 2020, and December 31, 2020. Nasopharyngeal swabs were collected from the individuals to confirm the COVID-19 disease by RT-PCR assay using "Sansure Biotech Inc. Nucleic Acid Detection Kit". Clinical and demographic information of the respective individuals was also obtained. The data was analyzed using Microsoft Excel. Results: We did not find any major difference of COVID-19 positivity rate between men and women. Men's average age was 44.4 years, whereas women's average age was 40.9 years. The severity of the symptoms was remained equal in men and women however, majority of the women as compared to men were showing a greater number of symptoms (2 or 3) simultaneously. We found that some of the symptoms were associated with the specific gender, for example chills, loss of taste or smell, and muscle pain were only found among men. While headache was restricted to women only. We also observed that some of the symptoms were co-occurred frequently in only men, these included shortness of breath with flu and fever with flu, while in women the frequently co-occurred symptoms were sore throat with fever. Conclusion: COVID-19 infection is equally common in men and women of Lahore, Pakistan. Whereas the number and the type of symptoms of COVID-19 could vary across the gender. Understanding these gender disparities in terms of symptomatology may help to guide the local health authorities in allocating the available resources more efficiently.