8. Assessment of COVID-19 in the Province Baluchistan, A Study on the Demographics of the Patients
Mir Arsalan1 and Farah Ahmed2
ABSTRACT
Objective: COVID-19 cases are exponentially surging around the globe. At the time of conducting this study, Pakistan had 7,993 cases and 159 deaths. Out of these positive cases, 432 cases were from Baluchistan. Baluchistan is the basin of the first contact of the virus in Pakistan, as the neighboring region to Iran from where the virus was initially imported.
Study Design: cross sectional study
Place and Duration of Study: This study was conducted at the province-wide in Baluchistan till 10 March to 19th April 2020.
Materials and Methods: A total data of 432 patients were acquired. It was analyzed for demographical characteristics using SPSS version 20.
Results: The most significant proportion of the COVID-19 cases were males 308 (71.3%), and the majority of them belong to the middle age group 21-30 years (23.4%, n=101). Contrary to popular belief, 60.6% (n=262) of these cases had been infected by local spread, while only 28.9% (n=125) were pilgrims (Zaireen) returning from Iran. Data indicates a gradual transition of positive cases from travel history initially to local spread in recent days. Moreover, 146 (33.8%) cases have been reported in just the last five days of acquired data. Quetta and Loralai have displayed the highest COVID-19 attack rate of 14 among all the other districts. Furthermore, the mortality rate was 1.15% and all cases were of age above 40 years.
Conclusion: Our study depicts a fair picture of the COVID-19 demographic trend, the study has clear indications for the provincial, local spread that have been realized by this data along with a spike in cases in the last few days, which is maybe due to non-compliance to physical distancing rules.
Key Words: Coronavirus, COVID-19, Pakistan, Baluchistan
Citation of article: Arsalan M, Ahmed F. Assessment of COVID-19 in the Province Baluchistan, A Study on the Demographics of the Patients. Med Forum 2022;33(7):31-35.