Characteristics of COVID-19 cases in Italy from a sex/gender perspective

Authors

Abstract

Introduction. Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). To date, few data on clinical features and risk factors for disease severity and death by gender are available.
Aim. The current study aims to describe from a sex/gender perspective the characteristics of the SARS-CoV-2 cases occurred in the Italian population from February 2020 until October 2021.
Method and results. We used routinely collected data retrieved from the Italian National Surveillance System. The highest number of cases occurred among women between 40 and 59 years, followed by men in the same age groups. The proportion of deaths due to COVID-19 was higher in men (56.46%) compared to women (43.54%). Most of the observed
deaths occurred in the elderly. Considering the age groups, the clinical outcomes differed between women and men in particular in cases over 80 years of age; with serious or critical conditions more frequent in men than in women.
Conclusions. Our data clearly demonstrate a similar number of cases in women and men, but with more severe disease and outcome in men, thus confirming the importance to analyse the impact of sex and gender in new and emerging diseases.

Share on

Downloads

Authors

Massimo D'Archivio - Istituto Superiore di Sanità

Claudia Cataldo

Martina Del Maso

Daniele Petrone

Chiara Sacco

Maria Fenicia Vescio

Matteo Spuri

Maria Cristina Rota

Marco Bressi

Massimo Fabiani

Stefano Boros

Alberto Matteo Urdiales

Flavia Riccardo

Antonino Bella

Roberta Masella

Patrizio Pezzotti

Luca Busani

How to Cite
D'Archivio, M., Cataldo, C. ., Del Maso, M. ., Petrone, D., Sacco, C., Vescio, M. F. ., … Busani, L. . (2022). Characteristics of COVID-19 cases in Italy from a sex/gender perspective. Annali dell’Istituto Superiore Di Sanità, 58(4), 227–235. Retrieved from https://annali.iss.it/index.php/anna/article/view/1515
  • Abstract viewed - 248 times