Hospitalized Afghan Refugees with COVID-19 in Yazd province

Background: Iran is one of the most migrant countries in the world, which has a large numberof Afghan refugees. In Yazd province, like in the country, there are many Afghan immigrants.According to the COVID 19 pandemic, the aim of this study was to investigate suspected anddefinite cases of the disease in Afghan refugees.Material and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in October 2020 in Yazdprovince. All patients admitted to public and private hospitals were included in the study bycensus (from the beginning of the epidemic period). Data gathering tool was a checklist andcollected data were entered into IBM SPSS Statistics 22 software and analyzed.Results: A total of 785 Afghan refugees were admitted with suspicious symptoms. PCR testresults showed that 232 of these cases were definite. The mean age of suspected and definitecases was 48.9 and 51.2, respectively, and in both groups women were more affected than men.13.8 suspected cases and 14.5% definitive cases were admitted to the intensive care unit. Thefindings indicated that the percentage of recoveries in suspected cases was higher than indefinite cases. (93.5 vs. 89.2).Conclusions: Due to the fact that accurate information about the population of Afghanimmigrants in the province is not available, the incidence of diseases in these peoplecannot be compared with the Iranian population. However, it seems that due to the lowerlevel of public health and living in crowded places such as Afghan camps, it is better toconduct the necessary training, observe the percentage of health protocols in thispopulation and make the necessary decisions to improve their health.

کلیدواژه ها:

COVID 19 ، Coronavirus ، Afghan Refugees ، Yazd