Survival Analysis of Symptomatic COVID-19 in Phuentsholing Municipality, Bhutan

Kinley Gyeltshen, Tsheten Tsheten, Sither Dorji, Thinley Pelzang and Kinley Wangdi
Additional contact information
Kinley Gyeltshen: Phuentsholing Hospital, Chukha 21102, Bhutan
Tsheten Tsheten: Department of Global Health, Research School of Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2602, Australia
Sither Dorji: Phuentsholing Hospital, Chukha 21102, Bhutan
Thinley Pelzang: Phuentsholing Hospital, Chukha 21102, Bhutan
Kinley Wangdi: Department of Global Health, Research School of Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2602, Australia

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 20, 1-13

Abstract: COVID-19 is a disease that is caused by a highly transmissible and pathogenic novel coronavirus: severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). All of the COVID-19 positive cases in Bhutanese travellers returning via the Phuentsholing point of entry, the local population, and Indian nationals were isolated in the Phuentsholing COVID-19 isolation ward, Bhutan. This study aimed to identify the risk factors for developing symptoms among COVID-19 positive patients in this ward. A retrospective cohort study was conducted using the data regarding COVID-19 positive cases in the Phuentsholing COVID-19 isolation ward from 28 May 2020 to 31 May 2021. The Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to identify the risk factors of developing COVID-19 symptoms. There were 521 patients in the study; 368 (70.6%) were males and 153 (29.4%) were females. The mean age was 32 years (with a range of 1–78 years), and 290 (56.0%) reported at least one symptom. The median length of isolation was eight days (with a range of 3–48 days). The common symptoms were: cough (162, 31.0%), fever (135, 26.0%), and headache (101, 19.0%). In the multivariable Cox regression, vaccinated patients were 77.0% ( p = 0.047) less likely to develop symptoms compared to those who were not vaccinated. The front line workers and the mini-dry port (MDP) workers were 15 ( p = 0.031) and 41 ( p < 0.001) times more likely to be symptomatic compared to returning travellers. The young and economically active population group was most commonly affected by COVID-19. The presence of risk factors, such as being front line workers, MDP workers, or not being vaccinated against COVID-19, meant that patients had a higher probability of developing symptoms of COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; patients; Bhutan; survival; analysis; symptomatic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/20/10929/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/20/10929/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:20:p:10929-:d:658686

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().