Qazi Masroor Ali, Ali Imran, Sadaf Shafique, Raheel Khan, Hafiz Muhammad Kaleem Ullah, Sajjad Sohail, Muhammad Sohail Tariq, Maria Masroor, Ghulam Muhy U Din Chaudhary.
Prevalence and Impact of COVID-19 in Immuno-compromised Individuals: an Experience from a Private Outpatient Setting of South Punjab, Pakistan.
J Pak Society Int Med Jan ;3(2):117-20.

To find out the prevalence and impact of COVID-19 on immunocompromised patients visiting outpatient department of a private healthcare facility of South Punjab, Pakistan. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was done at Outpatient Department of Aleena Hospital, Bahawalpur, Pakistan from 1st June 2020 to 30th December 2020. We included a total of 197 patients of both genders aged between 15 to 90 years visiting outpatient department of Aleena Hospital for various medical reasons. All patients underwent antibody testing for COVID-19 adopting immunochromatography for both IgG and IgM. A patient was labeled as immunocompromised if having diabetes mellitus or liver cirrhosis. RESULTS: In a total of 197 patients, 122 (61.9%) were male. Overall, mean age was 45.1+-13.3 years ranging 15 to 90 years. A total of 50 (25.4%) cases were antibody positive for COVID-19. BMI >= 25 (p=0.045), and "been to close proximity with someone who travelled outside/inside the country" (p=0.014) were noted to have significant association with COVID-19 positive cases while all other variables had insignificant association (p>0.05). Presence of diabetes mellitus was noted to have significant association with COVID-19 antibody positivity (p=0.002). Overall, no significant association of immunocompromised status and COVID-19 antibodies positivity was observed (p=0.090). CONCLUSION: Prevalence of positive COVID-19 antibodies was very high among patients visiting outpatient department of a private healthcare setting of South Punjab, Pakistan. Immunocompromised individuals were not found to have any significant association with COVID-19 infections.

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