EVOLVING TREND OF PATIENTS WITH SARS-COV-2 IN WEST BENGAL, INDIA

Objectives: COVID-19 has resulted in thousands of death worldwide and its transmission among humans is an important topic in this pandemic situation. Our study is the first comprehensive study on the evolving epidemiological trend of SARS-CoV-2 disease from patient of West Bengal, India. Study Design: Prospective observational data based study over a three-month period amongst all ages and genders. Methods: Using the gold standard Real Time PCR method to analyze nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeals swab samples for detection of RNA of SARS- CoV-2. Epidemiological data examined to detect prevalence of this disease among symptomatic to asymptomatic population. Results: Demographic data analysis showed that male population (69.79%) were more infected than female population (30.12%) by SARS-CoV-2. It was also revealed that majority positive cases under the age of 45 years were asymptomatic (64.34%) whereas symptomatic cases were more (65.75%) in older age groups. Month wise distribution amongst the positive individuals indicated that in the month of April, more positive cases (81%) were with symptoms whereas in the month of June, asymptomatic groups predominate (77%). Conclusions: The evolving trend of COVID-19 disease showing gradual shift of greater positivity among symptomatic to asymptomatic with progress of time from March to end June. It was also identified that predominantly asymptomatic presentation in the younger age group as compared to predominantly symptomatic presentation in older age group. This is expected to have public health impact in understanding the disease so that appropriate public health measures can be undertaken.