SARS-COV-2: RT-PCR CYCLE THRESHOLD (CT) VALUE AT DIAGNOSIS AND ITS RELATION TO AGE AND SEX IN ASSAM, INDIA

Abstract

COVID-19 (corona virus disease 2019) is a global public health emergency caused by a new corona virus with severe acute respiratory syndromelike characteristics (SARS-CoV-2). We aimed to evaluate whether gender and age are major risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 infection. For the study, 300 positive cases diagnosed during the period of July 2020 to September 2020 were included. Results showed that 69% of study samples were male of which 84% were in the >51 years old age group. And 31% of study samples were female of which 63% were in the 4-19 years old age group. ANOVAresults indicated that the means of Ct values varied signicantly between age groups (F=2.703; p-value= 0.045). The lower Ct values were recorded in males (29.01±4.35) in comparison to females (29.84±3.98) while, the difference between the means of the two groups was not signicant. Our study concluded that males have higher viral load than females and for both sexes, age was found to be a signicant risk factor for severity of COVID-19.