Impact of COVID-19 infection among indian sickle cell disease patients

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is one of the most common hemoglobinopathy disorders and is widely prevalent in India, especially in the tribal population. SCD patients are prone to develop recurrent respiratory infections and related complications owing to the microvascular occlusion and impaired immunological response.

We aimed to determine the prevalence and impact of COVID-19 in SCD patients from India.

We conducted a cross-sectional study in Chandrapur district of Maharashtra, India, between August and October 2021. After taking informed consent, details of 300 SCD patients' demographic data, history of COVID-19 testing, infection, symptoms related to COVID-19 in the past 1 year, hospitalization, complications, mortality, COVID-19 vaccination, and side effects were recorded.

We found that 93 (31%) of SCD patients had influenza-like symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic with symptoms of fever (81.72%), cough (35.48%), sore throat (18.27%), headache (15.05%), and breathlessness (7.52%). A total of 13 (4.33%) SCD among 300 SCD were tested as COVID positive. Majority of them were mild cases and the 1^st dose of COVID-19 vaccine was received by 47 (29.37%) of SCD patients and 10 (6.02%) of the patient had received second dose of vaccine.

Low incidence of COVID-19 and milder disease spectrum in our study cohort suggests that there is no increased risk of COVID-19 mortality and morbidity in SCD patients compared to general population. However, the reason for low COVID vaccination in our study could be due to the fear of complications of COVID vaccine.