¹Sarah Alkabbani, ²Amel Ginawi, ³Nada Hassan

¹Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences, ²Mediclinic City Hospital, ³Rheumatology Department, Mediclinic Parkview Hospital, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Background:

According to the literature, patients with rheumatic disease receiving immunosuppressants are at a higher risk of acquiring infections. However, this may not apply to COVID-19 infection according to the global rheumatology alliance provider registry. There is no evidence that underlying rheumatic disease or its treatment pose an extra risk factor for severity of COVID-19. In fact, hydroxychloroquine was used, and interleukin-6 inhibitors are currently used to treat COVID-19.

Objectives:

To understand the behavior of COVID-19 in rheumatic patients by exploring the demographics, epidemiology, and outcome in rheumatic patient who contracted covid-19 before the vaccination era.

Material(s) and Method(s):

This is a retrospective observational study reporting the epidemiology of patients with different rheumatic diseases who contracted COVID-19 infection in 2 Mediclinic Hospitals in Dubai. Data of patients who attended the rheumatology clinic were collected via patients’ electronic medical records. This included age, gender, nationality, body mass index, co-morbidities, rheumatic diagnosis, presenting symptoms, complications, and medications.

Results:

A total of 28 (68%) patients were identified, with the majority being females. Median age was 45 years (22-70), and 2 (6%) patients above 64 years. Seven (25%) patients were obese, 5 (16%) were hypertensive, 3 (10%) were asthmatic, 5 (17%) were smokers and one (3%) patient was diabetic. Majority of patients (80%) had mild to moderate disease with myalgia, fever, and headache being the predominant symptoms. Two patients needed hospitalisation, one with a diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus and another with antiphospholipid antibody syndrome. The most common rheumatic diagnoses were rheumatoid arthritis (43%), systemic lupus erythematosus (14%), ankylosing spondylitis (11%), and enteropathic arthritis (7%). Medications included Hydroxychloroquine alone or in combination (29%), Adalimumab (25%), Tofacitinib (25%), and Methotrexate (21%). No patient received prior B cell depletion therapy.

Conclusion:

We observed full recovery in all patients with the majority having mild/moderate symptoms. The median time to full recovery was 14 days (7-90 days). Although our data is from a small sample, it reflected similar experiences of other centers where patients with rheumatic diseases were not at any additional risk of severe COVID-19 disease compared to the general population