Amina Belhadj, Rania Yayaoui, Ilyes Zatla, Tewfik Sahraoui
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has become a public health concern. While clinical investigations on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been conducted worldwide, Algeria has been absent from such studies. This research aims to identify factors contributing to the virus’s spread. This marks the inaugural descriptive Algerian study on COVID-19. It involved a review of 3,698 medical records of diagnosed COVID-19 patients. The patient’s average age was 45.79 ± 17.05 years. Females constituted the majority (53.7%, P=0.000). The AstraZeneca vaccine demonstrated a significant protective effect (P=0.001) and a strong association was identified between the blood group, the rhesus group, and the occurrence of COVID-19 (P=0.000). Rhesus groups and female sex emerged as highly associated clinical factors with SARS-CoV-2 infection in the Algerian context. These results, divergent from the existing literature, are intriguing and warrant further exploration. More extensive studies are essential to elucidate and contextualize these findings.
