Major Article
Epidemiological characteristics of the COVID-19 outbreak in a secondary hospital in Spain

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2020.07.014Get rights and content

Objectives

In 2019 Chinese authorities alerted of the appearance of a cluster of cases of unknown pneumonia related to a new type of coronavirus. Spain is among the most affected countries. Our aim is to describe the cases of COVID-19 at Infanta Sofía University Hospital (Madrid), a public secondary hospital that increased its hospital beds to provide assistance during the outbreak.

Methods

Retrospective descriptive study of cases that met COVID-19 clinical diagnosis criteria or had a positive PCR test from February 27 to June 29, 2020. A description of demographic variables, hospital stay, mortality and the epidemiological curve was performed.

Results

Of 1,828 confirmed cases, 64.4% were hospitalised, 5.6% were admitted to the ICU. About 52.2% were male. The median age was 63.2 years. About 13.1% were nursing home residents. Nineteen percent were of Latin American origin of which 6.8% were admitted to the ICU. Overall case fatality was 14.6%. We observed a biphasic epidemiological curve.

Conclusions

Sixty to 79-year-old males were admitted and deceased more often than women. Mortality reached 14.7%. Latin Americans were admitted more often to the ICU. Further studies about epidemiological characteristics of COVID-19 in hospitals are necessary.

Key Words

Pandemics
Coronavirus infections
SARS-CoV-2
Epidemiology
Infection control
Hospital

Cited by (0)

COVID Epidemiological Surveillance and Control Study Group: Ana Isabel Bajo Martínez, Vanesa Barroso Gómez, Cristina Bayón García, Fernando Cava Valenciano, Rosa María Ceballos Rodríguez, Raquel Coca Serrano, Manuel Freire Magariños, Andrea González Prieto, Patricia González-Ruano Pérez*, Francisco Javier Guerra Aguirre, Luz María Jiménez Losa, María Luisa Loayza Escalante, Paola Maldonado Cid, María Dolores Martín Rodrigo, María de los Ángeles Martos Cano, Raúl Moreno Zabaleta*, Manuel Moriche Carretero*, Laura Parro Herrero, Antonio Revuelta Alonso, Fernando Ruisánchez Inés, María Pilar Ruiz Seco*, Elena Saez Alonso, Jorge Sanjurjo Portús*, Gonzalo Serralta San Martín*, Belén Ubach Badia, Ricardo Valverde Garrido (Infanta Sofía University Hospital, San Sebastián de los Reyes (Madrid), Spain; *Universidad Europea, Madrid, Spain).

Conflicts of interest: None to report.

Author contributions: All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and analysis were performed by L.D.I., C.G. and C.G.F. Data collection was performed by the COVID Epidemiological Surveillance and Control Study Group. The first draft of the manuscript was written by C.G. and L.D.I. and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Availability of data and material: Data was obtained from hospital records as described above. Institutional Investigation Review Board approval was obtained.

Code availability: Excel (Version 2010, Microsoft Corporation, Richmond, WA, USA). Stata (Version 15).

1

The authors contributed equally to this work.

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