Gender Differential In Symptoms, Morbidity, And Case Fatality Rate In The COVID-19 Pandemic In India

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 epidemic has taken a considerable toll worldwide and has harmed both male and female health. Statistics revealed that fewer females were directly affected than males; however, the latter may be more affected by the consequences. Some studies at the global level have suggested gender as the key determining factor in COVID-19, but there is a lack of such studies in developing countries like India. In light of the situation, this study has analyzed the gender-wise pattern of symptoms, morbidity, multimorbidity, and mortality due to COVID-19 in Karnataka, India.

Methods: We used patient-level raw data from COVID19-India application programming interface (API) from 09^th March to 05^th September 2020. We have used descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage distribution, and latent class analysis (LCA) to carry out this analysis.

Findings: The study comprised 78,983 COVID-19 patients who were 63.6% males and 36.4 % females. Out of the total patients, 10.1% were reported as deceased, of which 68.4% were males and 31.6% were females. We found that all three symptoms (cough, breathlessness, and fever) were higher among males than females in the case of disease symptoms. Males had a higher risk of severe infection and mortality in general. In comparison, females suffered from comorbidities like diabetes and hypertension were at higher risk of mortality due to COVID-19 than their male counterparts. The latent class analysis also revealed that females had a more significant proportion of two or more symptoms, whereas males had more than two comorbidities.

Interpretation: Given the differences in lethality between the two genders, we believe that our study has found the root causes of the gender differentials in the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, our research mapped gender differences in various aspects of COVID-19, which will help policymakers find suitable interventions to reduce the burden.