Dushantha Madegedara and Damith Nissanka Bandara

Respiratory Research Unit, National Hospital Kandy, Sri Lanka

*Corresponding Author: Dushantha Madegedara, Respiratory Research Unit, National Hospital Kandy, Sri Lanka.

Received: February 07, 2022; Published: March 21, 2022

Abstract

Background: Globally and locally unprecedented COVID-19 related deaths were reported. Exploration of clinical and biochemical characteristics of COVID-19 related deaths plays a major role in developing treatment guidelines and improving the outcomes of the patients. As there is a scarcity of publications locally describing the clinical characteristics of the COVID-19 related deaths, our endeavor was to fill the vacuum of studies related to the clinical and biochemical characteristics of COVID-19 related deaths in Sri Lanka.

Methods: A retrospective observational study was conducted in the Respiratory Disease Treatment Unit two at National Hospital Kandy, Sri Lanka. Information regarding clinical presentations, comorbid diseases and laboratory investigations were extracted from the medical records of the deceased patients. Statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS statistics data editor.

Results: A total of 42 COVID-19 related deaths were analyzed. Out of deceased patients, 30 (71.4%) were males. The median age was 68 years. The majority of patients 35 (83.3%) were given a history of at least one underlying comorbid disease: Hypertension (42.9%), diabetes mellitus (38.1%), bronchial asthma (14.3%), ischemic heart disease (11.9%) and heart failure (11.9%). The symptoms at presentation were breathlessness (66.7%), cough (54.8%), fever (52.4%) and, arthralgia/myalgia (35.7%). The main causes of death were severe COVID pneumonia (59.5%), Post COVID Interstitial lung disease (14.3%), sepsis (11.9%) and COVID associated myocardial infarctions (11.9%).

Conclusion: The majority of the deceased patients were elderly males with multiple comorbidities, had delayed presentations to the treatment facility, and had altered vital signs and deranged biochemical findings at presentation. Detection of these should alert the clinicians provide prompt and optimized care in order to minimize deaths.

Keywords: COVID-19; Coronavirus Disease; Clinical Characteristics; Death; Sri Lanka

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Citation: Dushantha Madegedara and Damith Nissanka Bandara. “Descriptive Analysis of COVID-19 Related Deaths in Resource Poor Setting in Central Sri Lanka". Acta Scientific Clinical Case Reports 3.4 (2022): 59-63.

Copyright: © 2022 Dushantha Madegedara and Damith Nissanka Bandara. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.