Men suffering from COVID-19 are three times more likely to end up in intensive care than females afflicted by the disease, research showed.
Data gathered globally between January-June also determined male patients were nearly 1.4 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than women, despite both sexes having an almost equal risk of infection, CNN reported Wednesday.
Researchers analyzed data from 46 countries and 44 US states. Although women (1.57 million) had slightly more cases than men (1.53 million), males accounted for 8,000 ICU patients compared to 4,000 females.
The study showed more than 200,000 COVID-19 fatalities included about 120,000 men and 91,000 women.
Nature Communications published the study results Wednesday. Reasons for the disparity in numbers between the sexes were not examined.
However, biological differences, and not behavioral or socioeconomic ones, likely contributed to the results according to researchers from the University College London and the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
"Men and women have differences in almost all arms of the immune system," said study author Dr. Kate Webb, a consultant pediatric rheumatologist at the University of Cape Town and The Francis Crick Institute in London. "These range from the early immune responses to viral infection, to T cell responses, B cell responses and immune memory.
"There are many potential reasons for these differences in immunity: hormones have immunological effects and women have two X chromosomes compared to one in men. X chromosomes are packed full of genes which code for immunity."
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