International Journal of General Medicine (Oct 2020)
Epidemiologic and Clinical Characteristics of COVID-19 Patients from a Quarantine Center in a Developing Community: A Retrospective Study
Abstract
Wail N Khraise,1 Tala W Khraise,1 Bright Starling Emerald,2 Mohammed Z Allouh2,3 1Department of Anesthesia and Recovery, Faculty of Medicine, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan; 2Department of Anatomy, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates; 3Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, JordanCorrespondence: Mohammed Z AllouhDepartment of Anatomy, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab EmiratesTel +97 137 137 551Email [email protected] N KhraiseDepartment of Anesthesia and Recovery, Faculty of Medicine, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, JordanTel +962 79 905 1295Email [email protected]: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an ongoing infectious disease caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) agent, and is generally known as novel coronavirus. The impact of the disease has had apparent effects on health, social, and economic levels. This study aimed to investigate the epidemiologic features, clinical presentations, laboratory examination, and outcomes of COVID-19 patients in Jordan.Patients and Methods: This retrospective study included all COVID-19 patients admitted to the quarantine center at King Abdullah University Hospital in Jordan between March 16 and May 21, 2020. Patient information was abstracted from hospital electronic records and included patient demographics, symptoms, comorbidities, laboratory tests, infection period, and outcome.Results: Approximately 42% of the quarantined individuals were asymptomatic. The majority of symptomatic patients had mild to moderate symptoms of the disease. Only ten patients (9.3%) had severe symptoms, with one of them progressed to a critical stage and died 15 days after admission. Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), and D-dimer levels were significantly elevated in many patients. More than two-thirds (69.8%) of the symptomatic patients were females. Elevated ESR and LDH levels, along with longer periods of infection, were significantly associated with symptomatic patients.Conclusion: A large proportion of Jordanian patients were asymptomatic carriers of the virus. This finding emphasizes the importance of a continuous surveillance process to discover these contagious carriers to control the disease spread. Additionally, we suggest that future analyses should investigate for sexual variation in the inflammatory response to this viral infection since most of our symptomatic patients were females. Finally, the role of ESR and LDH biomarkers should be investigated further for the possibility of earlier identification of patients with greater risk.Keywords: coronavirus, COVID-19, infection, pandemic, respiratory, SARS
