Corona virus lowers hemoglobin more in severe infection than mild COVID-19 infection.

Abstract

Objectives: To study the effect of corona virus on blood hemoglobin and the changes this virus causes on hemoglobin in COVID-19 infected patients. Study Design: Observational study. Settings: Rawal institute of Health Sciences and Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Islamabad. Period: Feb 2021 to April 2021. Material & Methods: Total 100 adult patients were included all were suffering from corona virus infection. COVID-19 infected patients belonging to both genders with no other cause of anemia were selected and all adult patients in which anemia was due to diseases other than corona infection were excluded. The blood samples of COVID-19 infected patients was taken in 5cc syringe and was send to the laboratory of Rawal Institute Of Health Sciences Islamabad for hemoglobin estimation. Blood heamoglobin (Hb) at the time of admission was recorded. Changes in their blood Hb was noted. Statistical Analysis: Data was be entered into SPSS version 23, normality of data was checked. For non-normally distributed data kruskal wallis and Mann whitney U test was applied and for normally distributed data Anova and post hoc was used. Spearsman correlation was used to correlate non distributed data and Pearson’s correlation was used for normally distributed data. Results: 100 adult patients were divided in two groups. Group I with mild symptoms of corona virus and group II with severe symptoms of corona virus. Patients with mild corona symptoms their blood hemoglobin level was 12.2 g/dl and those with severe corona symptoms their blood hemoglobin level was 10.0 g/dl. Conclusion: It was observed that patients suffering from severe disease of corona COVID-19 had reduced hemoglobin levels than those suffering from milder form of disease, thus confirming that corona virus effects the hemoglobin level and reduces its serum value causing anemia leading to complication of disease.