Critical Analysis of the Possible Determining Factors of COVID-19 Epidemiological Trend in Bangladesh: A Review

  1. Asif Ahmed
  2. Mohammad Mahmudur Rahman

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Abstract

Since its first report on March 08, 2020, COVID-19 positive cases and number of deaths have increased which reached the peak in late June and started to decline slowly in late August in Bangladesh. COVID-19 transmission and disease progression depends on multifaceted determinants e.g. virus genetics, host immunity, social distancing, co-morbidity, socio-demographic and environmental parameters. Therefore observed epidemiological trend may not follow predicted models and thus warrant detail investigation of the contributing factors. In this perspective, in the light of literature we hypothesize that preventive intervention strategies, socioeconomic limitations, climatic and meteorological indexes, acquired immunity of Bangladeshi population, demographic characteristics, health indicators and food habits contributed toward the observed COVID-19 trend. The key limiting factor was number of diagnostic tests in getting real epidemic scenario. Strong immunity of young people compared to the elderly and low prevalence of non-communicable diseases might have kept most of them asymptomatic, less severe with silent recovery. Climatic parameters, less population density in rural areas and certain food habits perhaps helped to restrict and combat the infection up to a level. Genetic polymorphism can also be driving factor in disease progression. Despite several helpful determinants in Bangladesh, person to person contact is still the leading risk factor for COVID-19 transmission. Infection may increase rapidly if safe distance and preventive measures are not strictly followed especially in the coming winter. Expansion of test capacity, intelligent work and vacation planning and public awareness should continue to reduce the infection rate and disease catastrophe. Bangladesh Journal of Infectious Diseases June 2021;8(1): 36-41

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  1. Version published to 10.3329/bjid.v8i1.57832
  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.31.20118745v2 on medRxiv
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    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.31.20118745: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    GraphPad Prism v.
    GraphPad
    suggested: (GraphPad Prism, RRID:SCR_002798)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

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  4. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.31.20118745v1 on medRxiv