Men and women are at equal risk of contracting the novelcoronavirus, but men are more likely to suffer severe effects of the virus anddie, according to a study which suggests that older male patients with COVID-19may need additional supportive care.
While the elderly and those with certain pre-existingconditions like diabetes and high blood pressure were reported in earlierresearch to be at greater risk of death due to COVID-19, the new study,published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health, examined genderdifferences in patients infected with the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2.
In the study, scientists, including Jin-Kui Yang from theBeijing Tongren Hospital in China, assessed trends among COVID-19 patients whodied.
“Early in January we noticed that the number of mendying from COVID-19 appeared to be higher than the number of women,” saidYang.
“This raised a question: are men more susceptible togetting or dying from COVID-19? We found that no-one had measured genderdifferences in COVID-19 patients, and so began investigating,” he added.
According to the researchers, it is still not completelyunderstood why some people are more severely affected by the virus than others.
But based on their observations, they said that additionalcare may be required for older men or those with underlying conditions. Yangand his team analysed several patient datasets to see if there were differencesin how men and women respond to COVID-19.
This included data on 43 patients who the doctors hadtreated themselves, and a publicly available dataset on 1056 COVID-19 patients.
Since the virus responsible for COVID-19 is similar to thevirus behind the 2003 SARS outbreak, and attaches to the same protein, calledACE2, on the cells it attacks, the doctors also analyzed a dataset of 524 SARSpatients from 2003.
Among the COVID-19 patients, the scientists noted in thestudy that older people and those with specific underlying conditions tended tohave more severe disease and were more likely to die.
They said the age and numbers of infected men and women weresimilar, but men tended to have more severe disease. Analysing the largestCOVID-19 dataset, the scientists also found that over 70 per cent of thepatients who died were men, meaning that men may have almost 2.5 times thedeath rate of women.
They said being male could be a significant risk-factor forworse disease severity, regardless of age.
In the SARS dataset from 2003, the researchers found asimilar trend of significantly higher mortality rate amongst males comparedwith females.
Yang and his team explained that the levels of ACE2, theprotein involved in the viral attack in both SARS and COVID-19, tends to bepresent in higher levels in men, and also patients with cardiovascular diseaseand diabetes, all of whom have worse outcomes in COVID-19.
However, the scientists said further research is needed todetermine why men with COVID-19 fare worse than women.
Citing the limitations of the study, the researchers said ithad a small sample size, and larger studies are needed to confirm the results.
But they added that the current research is the firstpreliminary indication that male gender could be a significant risk factor forCOVID-19 severity and death.
“We recommend that additional supportive care andprompt access to the intensive care unit may be necessary for older malepatients,” Yang said.