Demographic and Clinical characteristics of study participants
A total of 125 admitted hospital patients, laboratory-confirmed positive
for SARS-CoV-2 infection by quantitative RT-PCR of throat and nasal swab
samples were recruited for the study. According to the clinical
management protocol for COVID-19 (Version 3) issued by Ministry of
Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, patients were recruited
into different groups based on clinical severity(7). The patients
without evidence of breathlessness or hypoxia were classified into Mild
group. Mild patients were further segregated into Asymptomatic Mild (AM;
n=47) and Symptomatic Mild (SM; n=57) where SMs presented mild symptoms
like fever, cough, sore throat, headache etc. Patients with oxygen
saturation (SpO2) of < 93% on room air who
required oxygen support to correct hypoxemia, were classified as having
Moderate (MD; n=10) COVID-19, whereas patients with oxygen saturation
(SpO2) of < 90% on room air were considered
as having Severe (SV; n=11) COVID-19. In addition, a total of 16 healthy
participants with no apparent history of COVID-19 and seronegative (SN)
by Rapid antibody test, were also recruited as controls. The demographic
and clinical characteristics of all the study participants is summarised
in Table 1.