The epidemiological characteristics of COVID-19 in 03 provinces: Dak Lak, Dak Nong and Gia Lai from January to September 2021

Abstract

The study was conducted from January to September 2021 when COVID-19 vaccines had not yet been implemented widely in the Central Highlands region, COVID-19 pandemic broke out with reported high number of cases from July 2021 due to the wave of immigration from the COVID-19 outbreak center of Southern to this region. The study aimed to describe some epidemiological characteristics of COVID-19 cases reported from the Central Highlands region from January to September 2021. A cross-sectional study was carried out in Dak Lak, Dak Nong, and Gia Lai province. The study results showed that the majority of COVID-19 cases were 18 - 49 years old (61.7%). Of which, 57% were ethnic minorities and the rate of COVID-19 cases between male and female was the same. The fatality rate by COVID-19 was 1% and 4.4% of COVID-19 cases were severe. The risk factors of severe and died of COVID-19 cases were persons who had unvaccinated with Tetanus-diphtheria (Td) vaccine, existing underline diseases and elderly persons. The most remarkable finding was that COVID-19 patients who had not been previously vaccinated with Td vaccine within 1 year before SARS-CoV-2 infection had a 6.9 times higher risk of severe disease and death compared with patients who received Td vaccine with statistical significance (p < 0.01). From the results of this study, it is necessary to conduct detailed and further studies on the role of Td vaccine to situation of SARS-CoV-2 infection to identify new directions in the prevention of the COVID-19 in future.