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Women And Children Less Affected By Coronavirus, Research Suggests

Women And Children Less Affected By Coronavirus, Research Suggests

Women and children are less likely to die from the virus than men.

Ciara Sheppard

Ciara Sheppard

Research has found that women and children are less likely to die from coronavirus (Covid-19) than men.

Currently, more than 114,000 cases of Covid-19 have been diagnosed globally, and there have been 4,091 deaths - six of which are from the UK.

As the spread of the virus continues, many are wondering, who's most at risk?

Currently, as the virus is still new strain, there's limited research on who its effecting and how it's developing. However, a huge study conducted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) is able to shed some light on who is most at risk.

The study looked at the 55,924 confirmed coronavirus patients as of 20th February 2020, and found that 4.7 per cent of infected men died compared with 2.8 per cent of women.

Women and children are less likely to be affected by Covid-19 (
Unsplash)

The age group with the highest mortality rate were people over the age of 80 with 21.9 per cent dying.

Similar research from the Chinese Center for Disease Control found 0.9 per cent of cases tested in children were fatal, and 1.8 for teens.

"One reason we haven't seen so many cases in children is they are protected at the beginning of outbreaks: parents keep children away from the sick," Dr Nathalie MacDermott of King's College London told BBC.

As for the death rate imbalance in gender, coronavirus isn't an anomaly: women have lower mortality rates than men when it comes to many illnesses, including the common flu.

This is down to a lot of factors, one being men's inclination to smoke more than women. This is particularly noticeable in China where it is estimated 52.1 per cent of men and just 2.7 per cent of women smoke.

Coronavirus has now spread to 80 countries (
PA)

"Smoking damages your lungs - that's not going to be a winner," Dr MacDermott added.

On Monday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that the UK should be braced for the virus to continue to "spread in a significant way".

The virus has now reached over 80 countries worldwide. You can find the most recent figures here.

Featured Image Credit: Pexels

Topics: Life News, Coronavirus, Health