Epidemiology and its uses
Liam J. Donaldson, Paul D. Rutter in Donaldsons' Essential Public Health, 2017
The case fatality rate is the proportion of people who, having developed a disease, die from it. In practice, it is used in different ways according to the disease being studied. In severe communicable diseases with an acute onset, the outcome can be survival or death. The case fatality rate is then a clear marker of the severity of the disease, and information made public about it can be dramatic and alarming. Case fatality rates for Ebola fever when it emerged in West Africa were 66% among healthcare workers and 70% in non-healthcare workers. These may not be the true figures because data were incomplete in the affected countries, but the visibly high proportion of deaths among people who fell ill struck fear into local communities. Case fatality rates in most communicable disease outbreaks need to be interpreted with caution. Much depends on the accuracy of the denominator. If there are many mild and subclinical cases that are not known about and counted, then the numbers of cases in the denominator will be too small and the case fatality rate will be inflated.
COVID-19 Outbreak
Gitanjali Rahul Shinde, Asmita Balasaheb Kalamkar, Parikshit N. Mahalle, Nilanjan Dey in Data Analytics for Pandemics, 2020
The key to understanding a pandemic starts with an understanding of the disease itself and the progression of the natural course of the disease. The word “disease” is defined as the state that negatively affects the body of a living person, plant, or animal. A disease affects the body because of a pathogenic infection. The natural course of the disease starts before the onset of the infection, after which it progresses through the pre-symptomatic stage. The last stage is the clinical phase. In the clinical phase, a patient receives the prognosis of the disease. After successful treatment of the disease, the patient enters into the remission stage. Remission refers to a decrease in the symptoms or a complete disappearance of the disease. The patient needs to strictly follow instructions given by the doctor during the remission stage. This will ensure that the disease does not recur. If treatment is not successful, the patient can die or be chronically disabled. The following are some important terms that are used to represent the disease state: Case-fatality rate: It is defined as the ratio of the number of patients who die due to the disease to the number of people affected by it.Observed survival rate: It is the prediction of the probability of survival.Relative survival rate: It is defined as the percentage of the observed survival to the survival rate expectation.
Measuring population health and disease
Kevin McCracken, David R. Phillips in Global Health, 2017
A follow-up measure to disease incidence is the case fatality rate. This is the proportion of persons contracting a disease who die from that disease. For example, 100 per cent of people who contract Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease die of the infection, whereas only a very small proportion of cases of normal seasonal influenza perish. The case fatality rate is partly a measure of the virulence ('killing power') of a disease, but can also reflect other factors, such as differences in available healthcare. For instance, a higher proportion of HIV/AIDS sufferers in Sub-Saharan Africa die from the disease than do sufferers in developed Western nations due to lower access to antiretroviral medicines.
The use of statins was associated with reduced COVID-19 mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Published in Annals of Medicine, 2021
Kuan-Sheng Wu, Pei-Chin Lin, Yao-Shen Chen, Tzu-Cheng Pan, Pei-Ling Tang
Eligible studies were first deduplicated by EndNote X9. Then, two investigators (KSW and PLT) independently extracted data from the included studies using an established data collection form. Collected variables included the first author’s name, publication year, study country, study design, sample size, study period, demographics of participants, follow-up duration, diagnostic method of COVID-19, study quality and outcomes. We also contacted corresponding authors to gather missing data when needed. Both raw data and results presented as relative risk/odds ratio (OR)/hazard ratio were included. If a study provided unadjusted and adjusted results, we extracted the adjusted results. The case fatality rate (CFR) of each study was calculated using the number of deceased individuals divided by the number of all individuals [17]. Any discrepancies in data extraction or quality assessment were discussed with a third investigator (TCP) to reach a final agreement.
Epidemiology, pathogenesis, clinical presentations, diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19: a review of current evidence
Published in Expert Review of Clinical Pharmacology, 2021
Sayeeda Rahman, Maria Teresa Villagomez Montero, Kherie Rowe, Rita Kirton, Frank Kunik
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a highly contagious and infectious disease caused by the novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) [1,2]. It is well documented that the initial cases of COVID-19 related infection were first reported in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China in December 2019, and were linked to the Huanan Seafood Market [3]. Since then, the infection has spread to over 216 countries and territories. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced that COVID-19 reached pandemic status on 30 January 2020 [4,5] and subsequently, declared a global pandemic in March 2020 [6]. It has since been referred to be ‘the most crucial global health calamity of the century and the greatest challenge that humankind faced since the 2nd World War’ [7]. As of 26 December 2020, there were approximately 80,500,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide, including 1,700,000 related deaths [8], with a case fatality rate of 2.2%. The case fatality rate varies among countries, estimated from 0 to more than 20% [9]. A second wave of COVID-19 infection has already been recorded in many countries, which may be due to premature relaxation of government-enforced lockdown rules in many parts of the world [10,11]. Several countries have reported a new rise in daily cases higher than the first wave in March 2020 [12,13]. Although there is no shortage of information on this pandemic virus presented in everyday practice, this paper presents a comprehensive review of the latest information on SARS-CoV-2 highlighting the epidemiology, pathogenesis, and clinical aspects of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
The laboratory’s role in combating COVID-19
Published in Critical Reviews in Clinical Laboratory Sciences, 2020
Bingliang Fang, Qing H. Meng
Demographic data show that COVID-19 clusters within groups of humans with close contact and is more likely to affect older men with comorbidities. Overall mortality is about 7% worldwide [1], which increases with age and is highest among people aged 80 or older or with comorbidities such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and malignancies [6,7,39,40]. However, because of the presence of asymptomatic and pauci-symptomatic cases, the actual case-fatality rate could be considerably lower. Men have a higher risk of COVID-19-related hospitalization, mechanical ventilation, and mortality [40–43]. Although the entire human population is susceptible to this novel virus, children and teenagers aged 18 years and younger appear to have milder outcomes [2,9].
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