Publication:

Viral clearance in COVID-19 patients admitted in designated COVID hospital in Western India

Background COVID-19 pandemic is one of the greatest challenges faced worldwide and has not only posed health crisis but also had social, economic and political devastating effects. The speedy transmission risk enforced bygone practices of quarantine of healthy persons and isolation of all positive patients. The basis of all key policy making is the understanding of virus clearance from the body so that transmission can be ceased. The aim of the study was to understand the viral clearance and its’ co-relates for guiding infection control and transmission practices in COVID-19.

Methods Cross sectional study in a tertiary care hospital. A cross-sectional study of total 398 patients admitted for COVID-19 between June 2020 and November 2020 at a tertiary care centre. Statistical analysis used: frequency, percentage, and chi square test Chi square test for linear trend and was used to find association.

Results 88.19% were males and 11.81% were female patients, mean age of study participants was 34.84 years. 61.56% were symptomatic and among them 1.64% presented with severe symptoms. Mean duration to turn RT-PCR negative was 11.83 days. No significant difference in time taken to turn RT-PCR negative among asymptomatic and symptomatic cases is suggestive of no difference in viral load and its clearance in symptomatic vs asymptomatic cases.

Conclusions The disease profile of COVID-19 in our setup was alike the national disease profile and the recovery rate being 98.76%. Presence of co-morbidities affects viral clearance in COVID-19.