Scientists from different countries have found out why men are more likely to suffer from severe forms of COVID-19, which are fatal, than women.
In Italy, according to the National Institute of Health (ISS), men make up about 60% of people with a positive virus test and more than 70% of deaths. Even in South Korea, where the number of women with a positive virus test was higher than among men, about 54% of reported deaths were in men. A recent study in China showed that mortality from coronaviruses among men was 2.8% compared with 1.7% among women. Another Chinese analysis showed that men accounted for 60% of patients with COVID-19.
At the request of Global Health 50/50, a global health inequality research institute, and CNN, six countries provided sex-disaggregated data for both confirmed cases and deaths from COVID-19. These are China, France, Germany, Iran, Italy and South Korea. It turned out that men are 50% more likely than women to become infected with COVID-19.
White House Coronavirus Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birks drew attention to this “disturbing trend” by looking at statistics from Italy. “Mortality among men appears to be double that in every age group than women. This should alert us all and continue to be vigilant to protect our Americans in nursing homes,” Birks said at a briefing on Friday Coronavirus groups under the Trump administration.
According to Dr. Luis Ostrosky-Zeichner, an infectious disease specialist at McGovern Medical School in Texas, traditionally coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS tend to disproportionately affect men.
During previous epidemics, men had the worst clinical outcome in Hong Kong. They also had a higher risk of death from MERS, in a study in Saudi Arabia and South Korea.
The main risk factor for a pandemic, given the fact that coronavirus primarily affects the lungs, is considered smoking.
According to the World Health Organization, representatives of the strong half of humanity smoke more – 40% of men versus 9% of women. This makes them more vulnerable to a pandemic.
For example, China has the largest number of smokers in the world: about 316 million adult smokers. According to the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 50% of Chinese men and less than 3% of women smoke.
In Italy, 7 million men smoke compared to 4.5 million women, according to 2020 data published by ISS. The institute said that when admitted to the hospital, “a third of COVID-19-positive smokers had a more serious clinical situation than non-smokers.” For these smokers, the risk of intensive care and mechanical ventilation more than doubled compared to non-smokers.
In addition, experts called a number of other factors that can help explain inequality during the course of the disease in men and women. Among them are differences in the immune system, the protective effect of estrogen in women, the tendency of men to take risks more often. In addition, men often postpone going to the doctor when they feel bad.
All these factors contribute to possible complications of infection with COVID-19, the researchers concluded, advising them to do basic exercises, carefully monitor their health during a pandemic, eliminating smoking and alcohol.
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