According to scientists, the cells of the lungs in men is much more molecules of the receptor ACE2, which the virus uses to infect.
TASS, April 29. Doctors from Beijing found that men and women are equally likely to become infected with a new type of coronavirus, but men are much more likely to get into intensive care and twice as likely to die from COVID-19. Their findings were published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health.
“at the beginning of January we noticed that the number of men killed from COVID-19 was somewhat higher than women. It made us think about what it is connected with increased probability of Contracting SARS-CoV-2 or death from the virus. Never before conducted such studies, forcing us to carry out our own investigation,” — said the doctor of Tongren hospital in Beijing (China), Jan Cinque, quoted press service log.
Almost from the first days after the beginning of the epidemic of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan, the doctors began to notice that it causes a disease COVID-19 much more often infects and kills men than women.
Subsequently, the opinions of experts were divided, though most physicians continued to believe that men are more prone to this disease.
Cinque and his colleagues researched in details this problem, after studying the statistics obtained in the treatment of patients in their own hospital and other hospitals in China. In total, the researchers examined the histories of more than 1 thousand patients, most belonging to different age and socioeconomic categories.
Analysis of these data unexpectedly showed that the odds of infection were about the same for both men and women, but the likelihood of death from COVID-19 and the development of complications was significantly different. In particular, the proportion of men among the victims of the coronavirus was 70%, which was just as characteristic for the number of patients who are in intensive care and needing a respirator.
interestingly, a similar pattern was observed among residents of China who have had SARS in 2003. As scientists assume, due to the fact that her agent also uses the ACE2 receptor for penetration into the cells of the lungs and other tissues of the human body.
