Translate this page into:
The effect of COVID-19 on global population and its fatality rate: Retrospective study by online database
*Corresponding author: Siva Prasad Palem, Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Chalmeda Ananda Rao Institute of Medical Sciences, Bommakal Village, Karimnagar - 505 001, Telangana, India. sp.biocom@yahoo.co.in
-
Received: ,
Accepted: ,
How to cite this article: Palem SP, Palem HP. The effect of COVID-19 on global population and its fatality rate: Retrospective study by online database. Indian J Med Sci 2020;72(1):13-6.
Abstract
Objective:
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a current new virulent disease rising its transmission and fatality with each passing day in the worldwide population. COVID-19 is emerged as a respiratory infection and a suspicious origin of animals and transmission to human in Wuhan, China on December 2019. Later this, the virus was transmitted from person to person through droplets and contacts. The World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China have taken immediate action to reduce transmission and fatality associated with COVID-19 as minimum as possible. However, action has failed to stop transmission of COVID-19 from China to other countries. Since there was no chain break of the virus, the chances are more to increase the case number and fatality. Hence, the study has been designed to perceive the current effect of COVID-19 on the global population and its fatality. The study also focused on review related to treatment for COVID-19.
Material and Methods:
Online database of epidemic disease COVID-19 cases number was collected from www.channelnewsasia.com on 7th April 2020. This data was used to observe the past and present circumstances in the global population and its fatality. The effect of treatment on COVID-19 was reviewed from the few databases of clinical trials (antiviral and antibacterial drugs).
Results:
The online data are used to observe a significant increase ratio of COVID-19 cases and its fatality rate in worldwide as well as country wise. The COVID-19 cases are high in the United States (27.5%), whereas the fatality rate is high in Italy (12.47%). The prevalence of COVID-19 is expected to be reaching 4 million by the end of April 2020 and the fatality rate also might be reached high.
Conclusion:
We have come to the conclusion that the effect of COVID-19 on the global population is significantly increased and the fatality rate also elevated (2.48% to 5.52%). The hydroxychloroquine-azithromycin combination treatment has shown significant improvement in patients with COVID-19 compared to treat with other drugs.
Keywords
COVID-19
Respiratory syndrome
Fatality
INTRODUCTION
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a current new virulent disease rising its transmission and fatality with each passing day in worldwide population. COVID-19 is emerged as a respiratory infection and a suspicious origin of animals and transmission to human in Wuhan, China on December 2019. Later this, the virus was transmitted from person to person through droplets and contacts. The World Health Organization (WHO), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China have taken immediate action to reduce transmission and fatality associated with COVID-19 as minimum as possible. However, action has failed to stop transmission of COVID-19 from China to other countries.[1-3] This COVID-19 majorly affects lungs, which cause pneumonia and further damages kidney, heart, liver, etc., due to failure in the defensive mechanism (less immunity). COVID-19 is a family of coronaviruses (CoVs) that are phenotypically and genotypically diverse. CoVs are enveloped viruses containing single standard positive-sense RNA that belongs to Coronaviridae family of the ortho Coronaviridae subfamily which can cause illness in birds, mammals, and humans.[4]
COVID-19 is a seventh one in the family of coronavirus. In earlier, six coronaviruses are there, of six, two has considered as an infectious disease in human, which majorly attack the respiratory system, they are severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).[5] The current new novel coronavirus COVID-19 also has the same effect, but this epidemic disease spreads faster than SARS and MERS.[5] Hence, the study has been designed to perceive the current effect of COVID-19 on the global population and its fatality with online database of COVID-19. The study also focused on effect of other disease drugs effect on COVID-19.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The data of patients with COVID-19 were executed from online www.channelnewsasia.com on April 6, 2020.[6] The cases are suspected with the following symptoms include cold, sneezing, dry cough, sore throat, severe fever, fatigue, and breathing issue. Sometimes this epidemic disease is asymptomatic and symptoms can be appearing within 14 days of contact with diseased person. Throat or Nasal swab samples are used to diagnose COVID-19 by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction method in recognized diagnostic centers by different bodies of countries in worldwide. We also performed a search at the clinical trial database at clinicaltrial.gov.[4]
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The epidemic disease COVID-19 is a family of coronavirus, the two viruses are more pathogenic and raised its impact on population include SARS in 2003 had 8098 with a fatality rate 10% (774), while MERS killed 34% of people (858 of 2494 cases).[7] However, current new coronavirus COVID-19 widen very province of China as well as 27 other countries and regions with more than 70,000 cases with 2–3% mortality as of February 18, 2020.[1,8] However, the fatality rate increasing by passing every day, on 6th April, the fatality rate is 5.52% of 1.3 million COVID-19 cases in worldwide.
The primary cause for increasing fatality rate in COVID-19 cases is associated with co-morbidity and old age. The most common complications reported with COVID-19 are acute respiratory distress syndrome (61.1%), arrhythmia (44.4%), and shock (30.6%). The other complications associated with COVID-19 include acute cardiac injury, acute renal injury, pneumothorax, and secondary bacterial infections. The majority of populations affected with COVID-19 are older aged group population 51–66 years (30.6–72.2%), hypertension (31%), cardiovascular disease (14.5), and diabetes (10%) with symptoms of cough, fever, and fatigue.[1] The similar reports of various studies underlying co-morbidities and mortality rates may helpful to a health professional to triage and risk stratify the patient population who might require a high level of care.[9-13]
Prevalence and fatality of COVID-19
As per the most recent available data, the total number of deaths related to COVID-19 is higher than other coronavirus family (SARS, MERS) outbreaks of 21st century. The prevalence of COVID-19 is increasing rapidly in all over the world. In earlier, the WHO reported that COVID-19 was transmitted to 25 countries in worldwide, but present it has spread to 200 countries. Anyhow the available online data www.channelnewsasia.com had shown significant elevation of COVID-19 cases and its fatality in worldwide. Table 1 shows the significant increase in cases of COVID-19 from February 18, 2020, to April 6, 2020 (major affected country details have been discussed).[1]
| COVID-19 data as of 18th February 2020 | COVID-19 data as of April 6, 2020 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Area | Confirmed | Recovered | Death (%) | Confirmed | Recovered | Death (%) |
| Worldwide | 71447 | 11025 | 1775 (2.48) | 1,338,918 | 276171 | 73,918 (5.52)* |
| China | 70,646 | 10,937 | 1772 (2.51) | 81,740 | 77,310 | 3331 (4.07) |
| Japan | 519 | 1 | 1 (0.19) | 4100 | 575 | 97 (2.36) |
| Singapore | 75 | 19 | 0 (0) | 1375 | 344 | 6 (0.44) |
| South Korea | 30 | 10 | 0 (0) | 10,331 | 6598 | 192 (1.86) |
| Germany | 16 | 1 | 0 (0) | 95,391 | 28,700 | 1434 (1.50) |
| United States | 15 | 3 | 0 (0) | 368,196 | 19,581 | 10,986 (2.98) |
| France | 12 | 4 | 1 (8.3) | 98,984 | 17,428 | 8926 (9.02)* |
| United Kingdom | 9 | 8 | 0 (0) | 51,608 | 287 | 5373 (10.41)# |
| Canada | 8 | 1 | 0 (0) | 16,667 | 3256 | 323 (1.94) |
| Italy | 3 | 0 | 0 | 132,547 | 22,837 | 16,523 (12.47)# |
| India | 3 | 0 | 0 | 4281 | 375 | 111 (2.59) |
| Spain | 2 | 0 | 0 | 135,032 | 40,437 | 13,055 (9.67)* |
| Russia | 2 | 0 | 0 | 6343 | 406 | 47 (0.74) |
| Belgium | 1 | 0 | 0 | 20,814 | 3986 | 1632 (7.84)* |
| Iran | 0 | 0 | 0 | 60,500 | 24,236 | 3739 (6.18)* |
| Switzerland | 0 | 0 | 0 | 21,652 | 8056 | 584 (2.69) |
As of February 18, 2020, 71,447 peoples are affected with COVID-19 and it has reached 1.3 million by April 6, 2020, in worldwide and fatality rate increased from 2.48% to 5.52%. Within 47 days the COVID-19 cases reached 18.7 times and it is expected to reach 4 million by the end of April 2020. China where this coronavirus was origin, the effected peoples reached to 81,740 and fatality rate achieved to 4.07% by April 6, 2020. In Global population, 1.3 million peoples are affected with COVID-19 by April 6, 2020, among these badly affected countries include the United States (25.5%), Italy (9.89%), Spain (10.08%), Germany (7.12%), France (7.39%), and Iran (4.52%) and few other countries data have been displayed in Table 1.
The fatality rate of COVID-19 on February 18, 2020, was 2.48% and it reaches to 5.52% by 6th April, and it may reach 10% by the end of April 2020 in the worldwide population. The fatality rates are higher in other countries when compared to origin country (China) include Italy (0–12.47%), United Kingdom (0–10.41%), Spain (0–9.67%), France (8.3–9.02%), Belgium (0–7.84%), and Iran (0– 6.18%) and remaining countries data have been displayed in Table 1. Since there is no precise treatment to cure this disease, we need to take more protective precautions to avoid transmission of COVID-19 from person to person by maintaining social distance and often once washing our hands with sanitizers or soap.
Treatment
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) origin in December 2019, so far, no effective vaccine or antiviral drugs are available to treat this new epidemic disease but present only symptomatic treatment is going on. The pharmaceutical intrusions found for COVID-19 treatment include human immunoglobulin, interferons, chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, arbidol, remdesivir, oseltamivir, favipiravir, carrimycin, methylprednisolone, bevacizumab, thalidomide, Vitamin C, pirfenidone, bromhexine, fingolimod, danoprevir, ritonavir, darunavir, cobicistat, lopinavir, xiyanping, and traditional Chinese medicines.[5] A few ongoing clinical trials reported the beneficial effect of anti-malaria drugs and anti-viral drugs in patients with COVID-19, as follows.
The effect of antiviral drugs such as chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine (HIV drugs) inhibits the entry of the virus into host cells. Another mechanism of antiviral drugs is related to the post-translational modifications of newly synthesized proteins through glycosylation inhibition.[14] Recently, clinical trial has been done on patients with COVID-19 treatment. About 100% of COVID-19 patients are recovered with hydroxychloroquine treatment in combination with the macrolide antibiotic azithromycin compared to 57.1% with hydroxychloroquine treatment alone and 12.5% patients in control (only symptomatic treatment).[2,15,16] However, at present, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are tested in patients with pneumonia caused by COVID-19. Besides this, chloroquine was considered as preventive medicine for COVID-19.[5]
Remdesivir is a nucleotide analog inhibitor of EBOV RNA-polymerase RNA-dependent. In the earlier report of remdesivir treatment, on Ebola virus had shown a 33% fatality rate in early infected stages.[17] However, remdesivir is effective against the COVID-19 in Vero E6 cells, the recommended mechanism for remdesivir involves the host cells post-entry stage.[18]
The lopinavir-ritonavir is a combination drug for HIV treatment. Both drugs are HIV protease inhibitors, but ritonavir is also a cytochrome P450 and GP inhibitor. However, lopinavir-ritonavir combination treatment was not associated with the improvement of the patient with COVID-19 compared to standard care procedure.[19]
According to the WHO, more than 20 medicines are used to treat COVID-19 patients with 24 clinical trials. However, treatment with hydroxychloroquine-azithromycin had shown excellent improvement in patients with COVID-19. To confirm the results, we required more comprehensive studies with a large number of patients.[5]
Using the present online database, we have observed that how fast this epidemic disease spreads and kills the global population. Many countries are majorly affected due to this viral infection and where it is going to end is a question for us. However, we are unable to control the spreading of epidemic disease due to lack of full awareness and knowledge. Hence, we require more research activities to acquire knowledge on COVID-19 to break this chain transmission.
CONCLUSION
The present retrospective study observed drastically increased mortality of COVID-19 cases and its fatality in worldwide population. It is also expected to reach 4 million populations with COVID-19 and also it may reach 10% fatality. Hydroxychloroquine treatment with a combination of azithromycin has shown significant improvement in COVID-19 patients. However, still, it is unclear that the treatment is effective in COVID patients with co-morbidity.
Research involving human participants
Online coronavirus cases collective data were used from www.channelnewsasia.co for this study.
Declaration of patient consent
Patient’s consent not required as patients identity is not disclosed or compromised.
Financial support and sponsorship
Nil.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts of interest.
References
- Comprehensive update on current outbreak of novel coronavirus infection (2019-nCoV) Ann Transl Med. 2020;2020:1-11.
- [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of COVID-19: Results of an open-label non-randomized clinical trial. Int J Antimicrob Agents. 2020;2020:105949.
- [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Feasibility of controlling COVID-19 outbreaks by isolation of cases and contacts. Lancet Glob Health. 2020;8:488-96.
- [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Perspectives on monoclonal antibody therapy as potential therapeutic intervention for coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) Asian Pac J Allergy Immunol. 2020;38:10-8.
- [Google Scholar]
- Clinical trials on drug repositioning for COVID-19 treatment. Rev Panam Salud Publica. 2020;44:e40.
- [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Tracking the Coronavirus Outbreak Worldwide. 2020. Available from: https://www.infographics.channelnewsasia.com/covid-19/map.html [Last accessed on 2020 Apr 06]
- [Google Scholar]
- Coronavirus: Covid-19 has killed more people than SARS and MERS combined, despite lower case fatality rate. BMJ. 2020;368:m641.
- [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- An interactive web-based dashboard to track COVID-19 in real time. Lancet Infect Dis. ;2020
- [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Clinical characteristics of 138 hospitalized patients with 2019 novel coronavirus-infected pneumonia in Wuhan, China. JAMA. 2020;323:1061-9.
- [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China. Lancet. 2020;395:497-506.
- [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of 99 cases of 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia in Wuhan, China: A descriptive study. Lancet. 2020;395:507-13.
- [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Latent tuberculosis infection: Treatment initiation and completion rates in persons seeking immigration and health care workers. Am J Med. 2019;132:1353-5.
- [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Rare cause of respiratory failure: A twist in the tale. Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2018;15:880-3.
- [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Recycling of chloroquine and its hydroxyl analogue to face bacterial, fungal and viral infections in the 21st century. Int J Antimicrob Agents. 2007;30:297-308.
- [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Chloroquine Prevention of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) in the Healthcare Setting (COPCOV) Bethesda, MD: National Library of Medicine (US); 2020. Available from: https://wwwclinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04303507?term=NCT04303507&draw=2&rank=1 [Last accessed on 2020 Mar 12]
- [Google Scholar]
- Efficacy and Safety of Hydroxychloroquine for Treatment of Pneumonia Caused by 2019-nCoV (HC-nCoV) 2020. Bethesda, MD: National Library of Medicine (US); Available from: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04261517 [Last accessed on 2020 Mar 12]
- [Google Scholar]
- Two Ebola treatments halve deaths in trial in DRC outbreak. BMJ. 2019;366:l5140.
- [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- Remdesivir and chloroquine effectively inhibit the recently emerged novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in vitro. Cell Res. 2020;30:269-71.
- [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
- A trial of lopinavir-ritonavir in adults hospitalized with severe Covid-19. N Engl J Med 2020
- [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
