TMSS Medical College Journal

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus -2 (SARS-CoV-2). In COVID-19 patients an exaggerated and excessive release of proinflammatory cytokines (IL-6) occurs and may cause several severe manifestations. High interleukin-6 levels in COVID-19 patients suggest cytokine storm and are considered as a relevant parameter in predicting most severe cases of disease. Objectives: The study is aimed to assess IL-6 levels among hospital admitted COVID- 19 patients and evaluate their relationship with disease severity. Materials and Methods: Total 136 Rapid antigen test positive or RT-PCR positive COVID-19 patients from Department of Medicine of Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College and Shahid Shamsuddin Ahmed Hospital, Sylhet from January 2021 to December, 2021 were enrolled in this study by convenient sampling technique. With all aseptic precautions 4ml of venous blood was collected from ante -cubital vein and the serum was separated by centrifuge process at 4000 rpm for 10 minutes and stored in the laboratory at -20°C. Serum IL-6 was assayed by solid-phase chemiluminescent immunoassay. Results: In this study among 136 patients, 66(48.5%) were aged between 51-70 years and mean age was 49.59 + 18.03 years. There were 65 (47.8%) male and 71 (52.2%) female patients. Out of 136 patients, 76(55.9%) were moderate cases, 43 (31.6%) were severe cases and 17 (12.5%) were critical cases. Mean age of moderate cases were 44.36 + 18.53 years, severe cases were 52.36 £14.34 years and critical cases were 64.65 + 13.90 years. Interleukin-6 level was 6.06 + 3.69 pg/ml in moderate cases, 44.71 + 4.49 pg/ml in severe cases and 242.97+ 21.48 pg/ml in critical cases and it was higher in critical cases than severe and moderate cases. Conclusion: This study showed IL-6 level is significantly associate with the severity of illness. So, it can serve as an effective marker for severity of the diseases that can help the physicians to correctly allocate the hospital admitted COVID-19 patients at an early stage and to identify critically ill COVID-19 patients.

The Corona Virus Disease of 2019 (COVID-19) represents a global crisis caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). Corona virus was first isolated and named in the 1960s which belongs to the family Coronoviridae. It is a zoonotic virus that can spread between animals and humans. It is an enveloped virus with a helical nucleocapsid. It contains a nonsegmented, single stranded RNA genome with four classical viral structural proteins, these are: spike (S) protein, envelope (E) protein, membrane (M) protein, and nucleocapsid (N) protein.'-* The novel corona virus (SARS-CoV-2) first broke in Wuhan, China in 31% December 2019. The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020, and as a pandemic on 11 March 2020. On 8 March 2020, Bangladesh has confirmed its first case of COVID-19 patients caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus.’ On, January 2022; there have been 364,191,494 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 5,631,457 deaths, reported to WHO. Among them, Bangladesh has confirmed a total 1,798,833 cases with 28,394 deaths.