Epidemiologic Study of COVID-19 in Iranian Beta-Thalassemia Patients According to Disease Severity

Background: thalassemia is a genetic disorder that leads to chronic anemia and requires frequent blood transfusions. with the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) outbreak, thalassemia patients are at increased risk of disease. objectives: we aimed to study the epidemiology of covid-19 in thalassemia patients and its mortality to determine the disease severity. methods: this cross-section study was conducted in the first year of the pandemic. provincial information was collected. a questionnaire was developed to collect demographic, clinical, and paraclinical data and outcomes using history, examination, and laboratory tests. the patients’ data were analyzed statistically using spss (v. 21). results: thenumberof thalassemia patients was 19 387, of whom442 were infected by covid-19 (50.9% female and 49.1% male), with a mean age of 36.98 years (16 - 67). of them, 419 had a positive pcr test, and 23 had no positive test. also, 98% of patients complained of fever, and 54% had cough. of 442 patients, 14 (3.2%) died, four having a ferritin level > 5000. there was a significant relationship between covid-19 mortality and increased pulmonary artery pressure (pap) (p value = 0.003). also, there was a correlation between covid-19 mortality and ferritin level (p value = 0.005), while there were no significant correlations between covid-19 mortality and respiratory symptoms (p value = 0.30), pcr test result (p value = 0.74), and diabetes (p value = 0.47). conclusions: thalassemia patients are more prone to covid-19. comparing familial and thalassemia patients statistics, the prevalence and percentage of covid-19 mortality were higher among the patients.