Indian Journal of Health Sciences and Biomedical Research KLEU (Jan 2022)

Assessment of different risk factors associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection among young adults of a relatively vulnerable district of West Bengal, India: A retrospective study

  • Tanusri Biswas,
  • Saswati Chattopadhyay,
  • Arindam Dasgupta,
  • Aroni Chatterjee,
  • Debsopan Roy,
  • Suhrita Paul

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4103/kleuhsj.kleuhsj_252_21
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15, no. 1
pp. 81 – 86

Abstract

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INTRODUCTION: The observed increased infectivity among young adults in the last few months has made it evident that the SARS-CoV-2 is not only capable of infecting younger adults but can also exhibit severe symptoms in them. The exact role of different risk factors in case of COVID infected young is still very much under debate. OBJECTIVE: In this study, we tried to identify different epidemiological and clinical risk factors which might be responsible for increasing the chance of infection among young adults with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 198 young adults from 18 to 29 years of age who were tested COVID-19 positive by the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction at Burdwan Medical College and hospital during January 2021 to July 2021 were included in this retrospective observational study. RESULTS: The total population of individuals were divided into two different groups for statistical analysis, first group with 65 individuals (32.8%) who were admitted to the hospital and the second group with 133 (67.2%) patients who were not hospitalized and discharged after preliminary examination. 30.8% of the hospitalized patients required admission to intensive care unit (ICU), while 56.9% patients among those hospitalized required respiratory support and 29.2% required mechanical ventilation. DISCUSSION: Our study showed that diabetes and hypertension conjugated with obesity are quite common comorbidities associated with the hospitalized young adults. We have also pointed out that asymptomatic patients and those with mild symptoms presented a relatively stable clinical course, quite similar to that observed in other studies. Furthermore, our patients had a high rate of ICU admission per hospitalization which may be a reflection of a variety of social determinants that influence health outcomes. Conclusion: Our study by providing an exhaustive data set from the hospitalized and non-hospitalized SARS-CoV-2 infected young adult patients will surely provide a better understanding of the prevalence and effect of COVID among this vulnerable fraction of the population.

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