Clinical Features of SARS-CoV-2 Infected Patients in a Large Population Cohort from the South-West Region of Romania.

SARS-CoV-2 infection was first detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, in the last months of 2019 as an atypical pneumonia, from where it rapidly spread worldwide causing the most severe pandemic of the 21st century. The disease had a complex symptomatology, with clinical signs of pulmonary impairment, frequently accompanied by digestive, renal, cardiovascular or nervous signs. In the present study, we aimed at analyzing a group of 5649 patients, aged between 3 and 104 years old, diagnosed with Covid-19 and hospitalized within the Clinical Hospital of Infectious Diseases in Craiova between 2020-2022. In Romania, the first cases of COVID-19 started in the first quarter of 2020. Our study revealed that, in the first year of the pandemic, 1404 (24.85%) patients were hospitalized; in 2021, 3670 (64.97%) patients were hospitalized, and in 2022, as a result of prophylaxis measures and the introduction of the anti-COVID-19 vaccination, the number of hospitalized patients decreased to 575 (10.18%). SARS-CoV-2 infection affected all age groups, from children younger than 5 years of age to people over 100 years of age, but most patients (3060 patients, representing 54.17% of the whole investigated group) were aged between 55 and 75 years old. Regarding sex, we found that the disease affected both sexes equally. The most common clinical signs were: cough and temperature change, each present in 62% of the total group of patients and dyspnea present in 29% of patients. The most common comorbidities were cardiovascular disease (39%), diabetes mellitus (9%) and chronic lung disease (10.21%).