Epidemiological and Clinical Characteristics of COVID-19 Patients Studied by Jiroft University of Medical Sciences: Southeast of Iran

Background Objective: The behavior of COVID-19, clinical symptoms, and mortality rate are not the same in different regions. Due to lack of knowledge about the cited issues, we aimed to investigate the clinical symptoms, case fatality rate, and some risk factors of COVID-19. Materials Methods: This longitudinal study was started from the late February 2020 and lasted to the mid-July 2020 in Jiroft, Kerman province, Iran. The course of the disease, clinical signs and symptoms, underlying diseases, patients exposure history, travel history, adherence to health instructions, and the fatality rate of the disease were evaluated in the patients. The descriptive statistics and frequency were analyzed in different groups using IBM SPSS statistics version 20. Results: In this study, 2977 definitive cases of COVID-19 were detected using RT-PCR test. The frequent clinical symptoms were fever (45.2%), body aches and bruises (38.8%), and cough (36.4%), respectively. The fatality rate of the disease was 4%. Evaluation of the patients’ exposure history showed that almost 50% of the cases had no exposure. Among the studied individuals, 33% had the history of exposure to a definite COVID-19 case. Conclusion: Personal hygiene, social distancing, and use of face mask are of great importance in reducing the disease morbidity and mortality. Public awareness about COVID-19 should also be increased, especially in the elderly individuals with the history of underlying and chronic diseases