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EXPLAINER: Do men fare worse with COVID-19?

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Kate Kelland, Reuters

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2020/reuters/04/08/health-coronavirus-china.jpg"/><figcaption>People wearing face masks wait to cross a street at Beijing&#x27;s Financial Street during evening rush hour, as the country is hit by an outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), China April 8, 2020. <em>Tingshu Wang, Reuters</em></figcaption></figure></div><p><br/>LONDON - Death and infection tolls from the COVID-19 pandemic spreading around the world point to men being more likely than women to contract the disease and to suffer severe or critical complications if they do.</p><p>Here are some insights from research and experts:</p><div><strong>ARE MEN MORE SUSCEPTIBLE TO INFECTION WITH THE NEW CORONAVIRUS?</strong></div><p>It looks that way, yes.</p><p>In Italy, an analysis of more than 127,700 COVID-19 cases found that 52.9 percent of all infected people were men and 47.1 percent women. Among Italy&#x27;s first 14,860 deaths, almost 68 percent were men.</p><p>A Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention report found that in a dataset of 44,672 confirmed cases, there was a 1.1-percent higher COVID-19 fatality rate in men compared to women.</p><p>&quot;Evidence is mounting that men are experiencing more severe symptoms and have a higher mortality rate when compared to women,&quot; said James Gill, a specialist at Warwick Medical School.</p><div><strong>DO WE KNOW WHY?</strong></div><p>There are still many outstanding questions around why men are more frequently and harder hit by COVID-19 infection, but health specialists point to a number of possible factors.</p><p>These include both behavioral and biological risks:</p><div><strong> * Unhealthy habits, smoking, and their impact</strong></div><p>Experts say one influence may be that men, in general, don&#x27;t look after their bodies as well as women do - with lower levels of handwashing and hygiene, and higher levels of smoking, alcohol use, obesity and other unhealthy behaviors.</p><p>In many countries, smoking rates are higher among men than women, and smoking is a known risk factor for many other life-threatening conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure, lung disease and cancer.</p><p>The sex differential in smoking is particularly marked in China, where 50 percent of men smoke, compared to 5 percent of women. In Italy, a 2018 analysis found smoking was more common among men than women across all adult age groups.</p><div><strong>* Women&#x27;s &quot;aggressive&quot; immune response</strong></div><p>Another factor is the relative strength of the male and female immune responses.</p><p>Research shows that immune response throughout life - to everything from vaccines and infections to autoimmune diseases - is typically more aggressive in women than in men. With COVID-19, a respiratory disease caused by a coronavirus, this may be a particularly significant factor.</p><p>Philip Goulder, a professor of immunology at Oxford University, says several factors contribute to women having more aggressive immune systems, including that females have two X chromosomes compared to one in males, and that a number of critical immune genes are found on the X chromosome.</p><p>&quot;In particular, the protein by which viruses such as coronavirus are sensed is encoded on the X chromosome,&quot; Goulder said. That means this protein is expressed at twice the dose on many immune cells in women compared to men, which in turn could well be boosting females&#x27; ability to ward off COVID-19.</p>

<p>Death and infection tolls from the COVID-19 pandemic spreading around the world point to men being more likely than women to contract the disease and to suffer severe or critical complications if they do.</p>

Death and infection tolls from the COVID-19 pandemic spreading around the world point to men being more likely than women to contract the disease and to suffer severe or critical complications if they do.

EXPLAINER: Do men fare worse with COVID-19?

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EXPLAINER: Do men fare worse with COVID-19?

Kate Kelland,

Reuters

Published Apr 08, 2020 08:06 PM PHT

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