Abstract
Introduction. In the Republic of Moldova, the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed on March 7, followed by a significantly increasing incidence across the country. It is important to describe the clinical and epidemiological aspects that were adjusted to the national context in order to develop and implement optimal public health care measures. Material and methods. A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted from March 7 to April 6, 2020, using the surveillance system data of the Republic of Moldova on COVID-19 case incidence. All cases of COVID-19 were confirmed by Real-Time PCR. Results. During the reference period, 965 cases of COVID-19 were registered, whereas the urban incidence rate was 1.4 times higher than the rural one. The mean age of infected population was 45.2 years, whereas the most affected age group was 50-59 years, found in 232 cases. Healthcare workers made up 26.6±1.4% out of 965 diseased patients. They included nurses – 34.2±3.0%, auxiliary medical staff – 29.6±2.8%, doctors – 27.2±2.8%, first-aid assistants – 7.4±1.6%, pharmacists – 1.2±0.7%, paramedics –0.4±0.4%. The health status of people diagnosed with COVID-19 was severe in 8.0 ± 0.9% of cases; moderate severity – in 34.7±1.5% and satisfactorily severe – in 57.3±1.6% of cases. Conclusions. The identified clinical and epidemiological aspects allowed readjusting the public health policies in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infection among the elderly and medical workers.
Highlights
In the Republic of Moldova, the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed on March 7, followed by a significantly increasing incidence across the country
The first suspected COVID-19 case in the Republic of Moldova was reported on March 7, fol lowed by laboratory confirmation on 08 March in a person who entered the country
The present data confirms that according to the case definition for COVID-19 infection, a signifycant number of people underwent testing
Summary
In the Republic of Moldova, the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed on March 7, followed by a significantly increasing incidence across the country. The identified clinical and epidemiological aspects allowed readjusting the public health policies in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infection among the elderly and medical workers. Coronavirus belongs to a large family of viruses that can cause various symptoms such as pneumonia, fever, shortness of breath and lung infection [1]. These viruses are common in animals around the world but are known to affect humans in some cases. The World Health Organization (WHO) used the term new coronavirus 2019 to refer to a coronavirus that affected the lower respiratory tract of patients with pneumonia in Wuhan, China, on December 29, 2019 [4, 5, 6]. The WHO has announced that the official name of the new type of coronavirus in 2019 is COVID-19 – coronavirus disease [6]
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