Men are more than twice as likely to die from COVID-19, says study

Men and women are equally likely to contract the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19), but men are more than twice as likely to die from the disease as compared to women, a study has found.

So far, researchers have confirmed that older COVID-19 patients and those with certain underlying conditions, such as heart disease and respiratory conditions, are at greater risk of severe disease and death.

The new research results, published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health, however, suggest that additional care may be required for older men or those with underlying conditions.

The researchers at Beijing Tongren Hospital in China noticed a trend among COVID-19 patients who died -- that the number of men dying from COVID-19 appeared to be higher than the number of women.

For the findings, the research team analysed several patient datasets to see if there were differences in how men and women respond to COVID-19.

Strikingly, in the largest COVID-19 dataset, over 70 per cent of the patients who died were men, meaning that men had almost 2.5 times the death rate of women.

The virus responsible for COVID-19 is similar to the virus behind the 2003 SARS outbreak. In the SARS dataset from 2003, the researchers found a similar trend, with a significantly higher mortality rate amongst males compared with females.

Further research is now needed to determine exactly why men with COVID-19 tend to fare worse than women.