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Clinical characteristics and predictors of COVID-19 in a community sample from urban areas of Chennai, Southern India

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Abstract

In early 2020, with the arrival of the first case of COVID-19 in India, the laboratory at The Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University was recognized as a national testing site and received samples from two zones of Greater Chennai Corporation. This descriptive study analyzed the testing outcomes, along with demographics, self-reported symptoms, potential exposure to COVID-19 that were recorded in Sample Report Forms between June and September 2020. Nasopharygeal/oropharyngeal swabs were tested for SARS CoV-2 by RT-PCR Test. Of the 18,082 samples that were tested, 18% (3267) received a COVID-19 positive RT-PCR result for COVID-19. Among the COVID-19 positives, 40.9% (1336) were females (p < 0.000). Individuals in the age groups 21–30 and 31–40 years included the largest number (767, 23.48% each) of COVID-19 positive cases. The largest number of cases were from those who were classified as Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) or Influenza Like Illness (ILI) (1657, 50.7%) followed by those who reported direct contact with a COVID-19 lab confirmed case (1163, 35.6%). Among those with symptoms, 1791 (28.9%) tested COVID-19 positive compared to 1476 who were COVID-19 positive and asymptomatic (p < 0.001). Main symptoms were cough (32.1%), fever (48.3%), body ache (21.04%) and sore throat (30.60%). In multivariable analysis, history of SARI/ILI, contact with a confirmed case and having fever, cough and sore throat were the main predictors of being COVID-19 positive. Therefore, clinical and demographic characteristics correlated with COVID-19 positivity. And classification of patients based on self-reported symptoms and risk categories offers a model to prioritize testing and vaccination efforts.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Greater Chennai Corporation for providing test kits and reagents for the testing of samples. We also thank the laboratory staff and the data management team of the COVID-19 laboratory at the Tamil Nadu Dr MGR Medical University.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, The Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University, No. 69, Anna Salai, Chennai, 113, India

    Sivapriya Murugesan & Srinivas Govindarajulu

  2. Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA

    Hema C. Ramamurthi

  3. Department of Experimental Medicine, The Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University, No. 69, Anna Salai, Chennai, 113, India

    Saramma M. Jacob

Authors
  1. Sivapriya Murugesan
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  2. Hema C. Ramamurthi
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  3. Saramma M. Jacob
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  4. Srinivas Govindarajulu
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Contributions

Conceptualization: GS, SM, Methodology: GS, SM, SMJ, Data curation: SM, HCR, Formal analysis: SM, HCR Investigation: SM, Validation: GS, HCR. Writing-original draft preparation: HCR, SMJ, GS, SM, Writing—review and editing: HCR, SMJ, GS, All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Saramma M. Jacob.

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Conflicts of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Ethics Committee of the Tamil Nadu Dr MGR Medical University with a protocol code ECMGR0309142 on 20.10.2020.

Informed consent

Since e-identified data was collected from the SRF for the study, informed consent was not required.

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Murugesan, S., Ramamurthi, H.C., Jacob, S.M. et al. Clinical characteristics and predictors of COVID-19 in a community sample from urban areas of Chennai, Southern India. VirusDis. 34, 449–455 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13337-023-00843-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13337-023-00843-w

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