Authors : Jay Bhupesh Pandya, Nirali Milind Shethia, Divya Bangera, Shailaja Gada Saxena
DOI : 10.18231/j.ijmmtd.2023.021
Volume : 9
Issue : 2
Year : 2023
Page No : 110-115
Background: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The world has witnessed havoc with the rapid emergence of COVID-19. The unpreparedness towards the pandemic caused the whole world to face severe consequences. Emerging economies like India with a population of more than 1.3 billion faced heavy toll of life due to the rapid spread of highly contagious COVID-19 and shortage of medical supplies and infrastructure. The testing, tracing, and isolation of COVID-19 positive patients helped greatly to break the chain of COVID-19 infection, this later boosted by the vaccine production and administration on a war scale by Government of India.
Aim: In this study, we have tried to understand the symptomatic effects of COVID-19 on Indian population, its prevalence, and significance. Many individuals developed symptoms like COVID-19 but tested negative for the same and vice versa. The cases of individuals not developing symptoms of COVID-19 but infected by COVID-19 act as a carrier of the virus possibly infecting other individuals unknowingly. These individuals may have weaker immunity and more submissive health conditions due to age, under surgical treatment or are infected by other chronic or acute diseases. This makes it essential to correlate and study the symptomatic incidence of COVID-19 with respect to age and vaccination status of Indian population.
Materials and Methods: This study was undertaken to determine the symptomatic prevalence of COVID-19 in vaccinated and non-vaccinated patients that were tested in our laboratory. There were 86,761 samples tested out of which 49,371 samples were positives and 37,390 were negative. The samples from different parts of India were tested between1st July 2020 and 14th November 2022, dividing the total period in 5 phases for better correlation as vaccine administration started during early 2021 primarily for health workers and till it reached common people by mid of July 2021.
Results and Discussion: The observations and statistical study have described the significance of vaccination and have given better insights about the working class of individuals between 18 and 45 years of age which were more exposed to infection. The study also identifies various parameters which aggravated and conciliated the symptoms of COVID-19. The study helps us to identify the prevalence and incidence of COVID-19 virus in Indian Population and can be beneficial in devising a better strategies in future to tackle symptomatic adversaries of any infection.
Keywords: SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, Pandemic, Infection, Vaccination, Symptomatic, Asymptomatic, Prevalence