Viruses (Jul 2023)

SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Cities from the Southern Region of Bahia State, Brazil: Analysis of Variables Associated in Both Individual and Community Level

  • Murillo Ferreira da Silva,
  • Uener Ribeiro dos Santos,
  • Fabrício Barbosa Ferreira,
  • George Rego Albuquerque,
  • Ana Paula Melo Mariano,
  • Hllytchaikra Ferraz Fehlberg,
  • Íris Terezinha Santos de Santana,
  • Pérola Rodrigues dos Santos,
  • Luciano Cardoso Santos,
  • Laine Lopes Silva de Jesus,
  • Karoline Almeida Piton,
  • Beatriz Santos Costa,
  • Beatriz Sena Moreira Gomes,
  • Vinicius Moreira Porto,
  • Emanuelly da Silva Oliveira,
  • Cibele Luz Oliveira,
  • Renato Fontana,
  • Bianca Mendes Maciel,
  • Mylene de Melo Silva,
  • Lauro Juliano Marin,
  • Sandra Rocha Gadelha

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/v15071583
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15, no. 7
p. 1583

Abstract

Read online

The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), challenged public health systems worldwide. Individuals in low-income countries/regions are still at individual and community risk concerning inequality, sanitation, and economic conditions. Besides, during the pandemic, the transmission in municipalities and communities in the countryside and less developed regions kept viral spread and required structured and strengthened clinical and laboratory surveillance. Here, we present an observational, analytic, cross-sectional study conducted using secondary data from the Laboratório de Farmacogenômica e Epidemiologia Molecular (LAFEM)-Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz (UESC), to evaluate individual and community factors associated to SARS-CoV-2 infection in outpatients from different cities from Southern Region of Bahia State, in Brazil. The data were collected between June 2021 and May 2022. The SARS-CoV-2 positivity by RT-qPCR was correlated with low socio-economic indicators, including the Human development index (HDIc) and Average worker salary (AWSc). Besides, in general, females were less likely to test positive for SARS-CoV-2 (OR = 0.752; CI 95% 0.663–0.853; p p p < 0.0001). Although dry cough, headache, and fever were the most frequent, loss of taste (OR = 5.574; CI 95% 4.334–7.186) and loss of smell (OR = 6.327; CI 95% 4.899–8.144) presented higher odds ratio to be positive to SARS-CoV-2 by RT-qPCR. Nonetheless, the distribution of these characteristics was not homogenous among the different cities, especially for age and gender. The dynamic of SARS-CoV-2 positivity differed between cities and the total population and reinforces the hypothesis that control strategies for prevention needed to be developed based on both individual and community risk levels to mitigate harm to individuals and the health system.

Keywords