Why Are Males at Greater Risk of Death from Covid-19? Science Has No Answers

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A study published in China shows that the mortality rate for men infected by the novel coronavirus is 2.8 percent, higher than that for women, which is 1.7 percent. Data from other countries – Italy, Spain, France, Germany, South Korea and Iran – confirm the trend towards greater vulnerability in the male public.

Italy, one of the countries with the most deaths from the disease called covid-19, reported that men represented 71 percent of fatal victims.

According to the British newspaper The Guardian, experts are not yet sure why the mortality rate is higher for men than for women. The assumption is a combination of three factors: habits, hygiene and hormones.

Initial studies linked higher mortality among the male public with smoking, lower among Chinese women and higher among men. However, as the disease spread to other countries with more balanced rates of smoking, men remained the most vulnerable to Covid-19.

Although the effects of the new coronavirus have not been specifically studied, the hormone estrogen showed positive results in reducing influenza infection in women, but not in men, according to a 2016 study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University in the United States. Other than that, the male immune system can also take longer to fight viruses, which has already been observed in HIV and hepatitis C cases.

Another factor is hygiene among men, which is lower than that of women, as several studies have shown. Men do not always wash their hands or use soap, for instance. In a pandemic, such as the current one, hygiene habits are crucial to prevent contagion, according to the World Health Organization.

To determine the exact reasons for the higher mortality rate of Covid-19 among men, governments and hospitals worldwide would need to share further data on those killed by the disease. Countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, for instance, have yet to report such data.

The novel coronavirus has infected some 500,000 people globally; according to figures from John Hopkins University, 22,295 have died from covid-19 complications. In Brazil, the number of cases is over 2,000 and the deaths exceed 60.