• Datonye Alasia, Golden Owhonda, Omosivie Maduka, Ifeoma Nwadiuto, Godswill Arugu, Charles Tobin-West, Esther Azi, Victor Oris-Onyiri, Inwon Joseph Urang, Victor Abikor, Ayo-Maria Olofinuka, Obelebra Adebiyi, Abiye Somiari, Hope Avundaa, and Aloni Alali.
• Department of Internal Medicine, University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria.
• Pan Afr Med J. 2021 Jan 1; 38: 25.

Introductionthe knowledge of epidemiologic and clinical variables in patients with SARS- CoV-2 infection provides evidence and lessons that are useful for the pandemic response, with consideration of National and sub-National variations. The objective of this study was to characterize and describe the clinical and epidemiologic features of all the hospitalised patients with COVID-19 in Rivers State Nigeria, from March to August 2020.Methodsa prospective descriptive multi-center study of patients with positive SARS-CoV-2 RT PCR, who were hospitalised for treatment and self-isolation in four treatment centers in Rivers state, Nigeria.Resultsthe mean age of all the patients was 39.21 ± 12.31 years, with a range of 2 to 77 years. The majority of patients were in the 31 to 40-year (33.0%), 41 to 50-year (23.1%) and 18-to 30-year (22.0%) age groups. The patient population included 474 (73.4%) males and 172 (26.6%) females, with 93 (14.4%) healthcare workers. A history of contact and travel was established in 38.5% and at least one comorbid disease condition was present in 32.8% of patients. Patients with severe disease were 61 (9.45%), while the overall case fatality rate was 2%. The leading comorbid disease conditions were Hypertension in 23.8% and diabetes in 7.7% of patients. Fever (26.0%), dry Cough (17.6%), dyspnoea (12.7%), anosmia (12.7%) and headache (9.9%) were the most common symptoms. The presence of comorbidity and increasing age predicted death from COVID-19.Conclusionthe clinical and epidemiologic characteristics of this cohort of hospitalised patients show significant similarities with existing trends from previously reported studies, with contextual peculiarities.Copyright: Datonye Alasia et al.

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