JPSIM Journal of Pakistan Society of Internal Medicine J Pak Soc Intern Med 2709-8729 2710-0804 Pakistan Society of Internal Medicine 10.70302/jpsim.v3i2.2222 jpsim.v3i2.2222 Original Research Prevalence and Impact of COVID-19 in Immuno-compromised Individuals: An Experience from a Private Outpatient Setting of South Punjab, Pakistan Ali Qazi Masroor Masroorqazi@outlook.com * Imran Ali Shafique Sadaf Khan Raheel Ullah Hafiz Muhammad Kaleem Sohail Sajjad Tariq Muhammad Sohail Masroor Maria Chaudhary Ghulam Muhy-u-din Quaid-e-Azam Medical College Bahawal Victoria Hospital Bahawalpur Shaikh Zayed Hospital, Rahim Yar Khan Nishtar Medical University, Multan *Correspondence: Qazi Masroor Ali (Masroorqazi@outlook.com) 15 06 2022 2022 3 2 117 120 07 01 2022 16 04 2022 Copyright © 2022 The Author(s) 2022 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objective

To find out the prevalence and impact of COVID-19 on immunocompromised patients visiting outpatient department of a private healthcare facility of South Punjab, Pakistan.

 Methodology

This cross-sectional study was done at Outpatient Department of Aleena Hospital, Bahawalpur, Pakistan from 1st June 2020 to 30th December 2020. We included a total of 197 patients of both genders aged between 15 to 90 years visiting outpatient department of Aleena Hospital for various medical reasons. All patients underwent antibody testing for COVID-19 adopting immunochromatography for both IgG and IgM. A patient was labeled as immunocompromised if having diabetes mellitus or liver cirrhosis.

 Results

In a total of 197 patients, 122 (61.9%) were male. Overall, mean age was 45.1±13.3 years ranging 15 to 90 years. A total of 50 (25.4%) cases were antibody positive for COVID-19. BMI ≥ 25 (p=0.045), and “been to close proximity with someone who travelled outside/inside the country” (p=0.014) were noted to have significant association with COVID-19 positive cases while all other variables had insignificant association (p>0.05). Presence of diabetes mellitus was noted to have significant association with COVID-19 antibody positivity (p=0.002). Overall, no significant association of immunocompromised status and COVID-19 antibodies positivity was observed (p=0.090).

 Conclusion

Prevalence of positive COVID-19 antibodies was very high among patients visiting outpatient department of a private healthcare setting of South Punjab, Pakistan. Immunocompromised individuals were not found to have any significant association with COVID-19 infections.

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