• Naseem Asghar, Umair Khalil, and Iftikhar Uddin.
• Naseem Asghar, Lecturer, Department of Statistics, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, Pakistan.
• Pak J Med Sci. 2024 Sep 1; 40 (8): 184118461841-1846.

ObjectiveTo examine the potential difference in survival and risk of death between asymptomatic and symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 patients, controlled by age and gender for all the attendance in hospitals of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pakistan.MethodsIn this retrospective study, the medical records of 6273 SARS-CoV-2 patients admitted to almost all hospitals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during the first wave of the coronavirus outbreak from March to June 2020 were analysed. The effects of gender, age, and being symptomatic on the survival of SARS-CoV-2 patients were assessed using cure-survival models as opposed to the conventional Cox proportional hazards model.ResultsThe prevalence of initially symptomatic patients was 55.8%, and the overall mortality rate was 11.8%. The fitted cure-survival models suggest that age affects the probability of death (incidence) but not the short-term survival time of patients (latency); symptomatic patients have a higher risk of death than their asymptomatic counterparts, but the survival time of symptomatic patients is longer on average; gender has no significant effect on the probability of death and survival time.ConclusionThe available data and statistical results suggest that asymptomatic and young patients are generally less susceptible to initial infection with SARS-CoV-2 and therefore have a lower risk of death. Our regression models show that uncured asymptomatic patients generally have poorer short-term survival than their uncured symptomatic counterparts. The association between gender and survival outcome was not significant.Copyright: © Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences.

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