TRENDS IN INCIDENCE OF COVID 19 BASED ON PERFORMED RAPID ANTIGEN TEST

Abstract

The COVID 19 outbreak represents a historically unprecedented pandemic, particularly
dangerous and potentially lethal for elderly population. The biological differences in the immune
systems between men and women exist which may impact our ability to fight an infection
including SARS-2-CoV-2. Men tended to develop more symptomatic and serious disease than
women, according to the clinical classification of severity. Age-related changes in the immune
system are also different between sexes and there is a marked association between
morbidity/mortality and advanced age in COVID-19. This is a single-center, retrospective, data
oriented study performed at the private hospital, in Central Province, Sri Lanka. The data of the
patients who performed the Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) to know whether they have infected by
SARS-CoV-2 or not, were taken for analysis. Test performed date, age, sex, number of positive
and negative cases, number of male and female patients were extracted. Finally the data were
analyzed in simple statistical method according to the objective of the study. Totally 642 patients
performed RAT within the period of one month from 11.08.2021 to 11.09.2021. Among them
426 (66.35%) are male and 216 (33.64%) are female. 20.4% (n=131) of male obtained positive
result among the total male population (n=426). Likewise 11.4% (n=73) of female obtained
positive result among the total male population (n=216). Large number of positive cases was
observed (34.89%) between the age group of 31-40 years in both sexes. The age group of 21-30
and 41-50 years also were shared the almost same percentage (17.13% & 17.75). The large
number of positive male patients observed among the age group of 41-50 years. Almost same
number of patients was observed in the age group of 21-30 and 31-40. The least number of
positive cases (0.7% and 0.9%) observed almost in 0-10 and 81-90 years. When considering the
females, large number of positive female patients observed among the age group of 31-40 years