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Coronavirus is far more deadly for men than women, with males 65 per cent more likely to die from an infection than females, new analysis shows.

The latest breakdown of figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Chinese scientists shows that, of all suspected cases, 1.7 per cent of women who contract the virus will die compared with 2.8 per cent of men.

In confirmed cases, the infection is fatal for 4.7 per cent of men but just 2.8 per cent of women, even though the gender balance for those testing positive is roughly split in half.

Some experts believe the sex imbalance relates to a higher prevalance of smoking or chronic alcohol use among men, while others think men are more likely to have underlying health conditions such as heart disease and diabetes, making them more vulerable to an infection.

During the height of the Wuhan epidemic, 16 per cent of people receiving dialysis at Remnin Hospital contracted the disease, and 16 per cent died.

Although the overall global death rate is still being calculated, with estimates ranging from one to 3.8 per cent, the analysis by Worldometer shows it jumps hugely when people have health problems.

The risk of death rises to 10.5 per cent for people with cardiovascular disease, 7.3 per cent for diabetics, 6.3 per cent for those with chronic respiratory disease, six per cent for people with high blood pressure and 5.6 per cent for cancer sufferers.

However, Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, believes women may simply have better immune systems and are biologically better at fighting off the virus.

"Some of the differences are probably due to men smoking more and being chronic abusers of alcohol, but also, women are intrinsically different to men in their immune response," he said.

"Sometimes that works in women's favour. Women seem to have more powerful immune systems, which means they suffer more from autoimmune disease like rheumatoid arthritis, when the immune system responds over-aggressively and ends up attacking the body.

"This happens in men far less frequently, but itappears to be a good thing for a number of infections and particularly influenza, and there is evidence women produce better antibody responses to the influenza vaccine than men."

Older men may be particularly at risk because the death rate rockets in the elderly.

While the chance of dying from the virus for anyone under 50 is less than 0.5 per cent, it jumps to 1.3 per cent after the age of 50 and then nearly trebles to 3.6 per cent after 60.

By the time someone reaches 70, their risk of dying has hit eight per cent, which then rises to 14.8 per cent for the over 80s, far and away the most vulnerable group.

On Thursday evening,NHS Berkshire confirmed that the first person to die in Britain was an "older patient with underlying health conditions".

The British man who died after contracting the virus on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was quarantined off the Japanese coast, was in his 70s.

Although many older people are often suffering from chronic disease which make them more vulnerable, the immune system itself begins to break down in later life.

Diseases that are largely harmless in youth, such as chicken pox, hide in the body and can become deadly shingles as people get older and their immunity begins to decline. The quality of antibodies produced also diminishes with age, preventing the body from clearing out viruses quickly and efficiently.

"Our immune systems start giving up the ghost," added Prof Hunter. "You're going to delay coming up with an antibody."

Yet young children seem to be oddly protected against coronavirus. So far there have been no deaths among the under 10s, and the disease is fatal for just 0.2 per cent of people aged between 10 and 40.

Dr Andrew Freeman, a reader in infectious diseases at Cardiff University, said: "I think, with children, it is likely that they are susceptible to infection but more likely get mild/asymptomatic infection.

"This does occur with some other viral infections such as Epstein-Barr virus infection which causes glandular fever in young adults, and also hepatitis A. We still have a lot to learn about this virus."

Read the original here:
Men far more likely to die from coronavirus than women, analysis shows - Telegraph.co.uk

This entry was posted on March 9, 2020 at 3:48 am and is filed under Immune System. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |